


Flowers Cultivated in Soil of Absurdity:

by Sica520



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: But He Wont Let Jazz Help... Which is Driving Her Crazy... So She Drives Him Crazy, Canonical Character Death, Danny Fenton Needs Help, Don't Diagnose your Friends and Family and Don't Self Diagnose, Episode Related, Fentons' A+ Parenting, Going slower than I first thought, Jack and Maddie Are Trying... They Are Bad At It... But They Are Trying, Jasmine "I am the most well adjusted... LOOK SEE HOW WELL ADJUSTED I AM?!?!" Fenton, Jazz is Not an Adult... But don't tell her that, Jazz is also Not a Professional Pyschologist..., Jazz-centric, Kinda, More tags to be added, Pre-Canon, Psychology...duh it in Jazz's POV, Spike Deserves a Medal for Putting up with Jazz sometimes, Spike makes an apperance but because of how little we are given about him he is practically an oc, We made it to cannon timelines, day by day snip bits, does Danny even count?, ghosts are freaky and scary, prereveal, rinse and repeat, sorta - Freeform, we will get to kinda cannon storylines...eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:41:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25234096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sica520/pseuds/Sica520
Summary: A Tentative Memoir by Jasmine Fenton.A work in progress and a project that she had started at an extreamly young age. The childhood diary had become something more serious, imitating the kinds of situations she found herself forced to tackle. She was a Fenton she was used to things out of the ordinary, and had, albiet partially reluctantly, accepted that her life was always going to be filled with abusurdity. But...well sometimes life can surprise even those who thought they were prepared for everything.(AKA The series and more from Jazz's POV)
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jack Fenton & Jazz Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton
Comments: 13
Kudos: 43





	1. A Diary, a Little Girl's Best-Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Jazz is my absolute favorite character. I relate to her so much sometimes...and yeah I know thats not always a good thing. So here is the series told through her eyes the "memoir" that she mentioned in one episode. This will be kinda like a rewrite, but at the same time I will take the episode plots and play around with them, particularly in making it a bit more realistic and the dialouge flow better. Don't be too surprised if some episodes seem different, also I will be filling out the inbetween moments as well as preseries moments. Thanks for reading hope you enjoy it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prolouge. Snip bits of Jasmine Fenton's early childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the first couple of chapters will be a couple of short preseries moments that just set up some things, before we get into the week of the accident and go from there.

Jasmine Fenton had a journal where she kept a written record of the various important times of her life. It was something that she'd started back when she was very little. She never ran out of topics to write about; there was always something happening. When she had used up every page, she simply began a new journal.

She now had quite a few stacked on her bedroom bookshelf and under her desk.

The journals tracked her own progress through her development as a child. The topics, interests, handwriting, and word usage had become more mature surprisingly fast, just as Jasmine herself pushed to be grown-up at a very young age. The journals had long since changed from babbling in a diary about her day, into something more serious that could almost pass for a clinical report. 

Although at first, it was just a regular diary. Her thoughts and experiences of her day to day life were written down; just a little girl with a diary, nothing out of the ordinary ... Although, considering the household she grew up in, even the day to day always had something strange and out of the ordinary. 

Day to day. Some days had longer entrees worthy of the milestones they represented.

The day when Mommy and Daddy had first let her in the lab. It was like something straight out of a children's book or movie. She had bounced eagerly and excitedly around this huge room full of endless potential, wanting to know everything about the strange and magical things that her parents made. Her parents had seemed like the smart-est best-est people in the whole wide world on that day. Her heroes, who would hunt any monster under the bed or hiding in the dark. Geniuses and explorers bravely paving the way to brand new scientific discoveries. Her mom was a tiny bit more concerned about her in the lab than dad, but safety was never either of their top priorities. 

However, there were still some rules:

  * No going into the lab without Mommy and Daddy.
  * No bringing friends into the lab without parental approval and supervision.
  * No food or drink in the lab as it may result in " _ecto-contamination"._
  * Go through the decontamination shower if it becomes apparent that it's needed.
  * Listen to Mommy and Daddy in the lab immediately and without hesitation as it can be dangerous. 
  * Wear safety jumpsuits made out of insulating and protective Fentondex material.
  * No touching things without permission. etc...



Jazz had dutifully inscribed each rule in her journal with her messy childish handwriting and misspellings. 

____

The day she had started kindergarten...as the "weird girl". The day she found out that kids could be cruel, and unforgiving to those who strayed from the conventional. The first time she got to see her family from an outside perspective: to other people, they weren't geniuses, they were lunatics. She had cried when she branded her journal with the same ugly words her peers had used as if it was some great betrayal to record them in her diary forever.

____

The day Mommy had told her she was going to be an older sister. She'd jotted down all the bursting emotions that came with that revelation.

What would happen next?

Would the baby in Mommy's tummy be a girl like her or a boy?

What would change due to this new addition?

Mommy and Daddy were already very busy, sometimes... too busy, and another baby would only make them busier. Or perhaps Jazz could help so then they wouldn't be busy.

Maybe a sibling would help her not feel so loney. 

____

The day that promise had come true.

It was incredible, even though the waiting was boring and the hospital wasnt really fun. The newborn baby had been loud, he cried and screamed; it all must be so new and scary for him. Mommy had started rocking him softly and he stopped crying for a bit. Then the baby was passed from Mom to Dad. Jack Fenton looked even bigger with the small child in his arms. Jazz pulled on her dads shirt –for once he wasnt wearing his jumpsuit–wanting to see and be involved. Daddy slowly and gently stooped down, so that Jazz could come face to face with her new baby brother. A real live baby. What mom and dad had been talking about for so long, was now a reality. Jazz was officially an older sister.

Dad gave her a warm smile "Do you want to hold him?"

Then her baby brother was gently placed in her little arms, as Dad helped her hold him. At first he had started crying again, and she was afraid that she did something wrong and messed up her first day as an big sister. But guided by her fathers big strong arms, she rocked the little boy into a calm soothing silence. He was so little. Little hands, that he couldnt even really unclench yet, moved around without much direction. Then he looked right at her; Jazz gazed into those bright blue eyes, her own wide with amazement and curiosity. Her breath had caught in wonder.

She felt that her entry about that day could never truly do the event justice. 

_____

The day she started to see that she was already ahead of most curves in terms of basic development. She learned and retained things faster than her peers. That only served to further isolate her. She had no real friends... Pages of her journals were filled with too many lonely days of wishing she had any social skills.

One of the last strict diary entrees was for the day she was finally old enough to realize just how weird her family really was. The day when it dawned on her that her parents weren't infallible. In fact, they were quite wrong about several things. 

First and foremost...ghosts. 

Her parents were self-proclaimed ghost hunters. 

When she was young and impressionable she'd believed in the apparitions that her parents taught her about...then she began to realize that everyone else didn't share those same beliefs. 

All her teachers and textbooks seemed to disprove her parents' ideas. So, perhaps it was time to reevaluate the core beliefs, that her parents had instilled in her, that she had never thought to question before. 

Her writings changed, and instead of detailing her day, at 7 years old Jasmine Fenton began to craft an argument for the supernatural and put her belief in ghosts on trail.


	2. The Supernatural Weighed, and Found Wanting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz crafted an argument trying to steelman her parents' beliefs... and see if their claims really did hold any water.

An imperfect line split the page. Childish, but still as neat as she could make it, handwriting began writing down evidence for both sides. 

* * *

Premise: Ghosts are real

* * *

On the left side of the line, she wrote in big letters: Affirmative.

The right side: Negative. 

Then she began her list of points to back up the claims from both sides.

  * Affirmative: Mom and dad told me so.



Jazz frowned after she wrote that sentence; that was such a _childish_ argument. An appeal to authority and no real backing with data.

  * Negative: All of my teachers say no.



Same problem...an appeal to authority only this time citing a different expert. She stopped writing for a bit and thought back. She could list them all. From kindergarten to her current 3rd-grade teacher. Every single one of them had told her that ghosts were not real.

  * A: Mom and Dad are super smart.



Not much of an argument there, a fact, a non-sequitur that had no use to either side.

Two could play at that game, each logical fallacy could be used to prop up or tear down either side. 

  * N: Another fact, even smart people can be wrong. 



She knew that. One of the first teachers that she had looked up to, Ms. Brown, had told her that, and she has tried her best to never forget it.

\-- 

It had been a fairly normal day in class when she'd received that life-altering realization. Jazz had been insisting as loudly and _immaturely_ as she could that she was the smartest in class and therefore she knew what she was talking about. She'd declared that everyone who thought she was wrong was just too stupid to understand. 

Ms. Brown, her kindergarten teacher, had taken 4 and 3/4 years-old Jasmine aside and told her that she couldn't behave that way. The little girl had a full-on meltdown; a complete temper tantrum. Ms. Brown patiently waited out the screams and waves of emotion. Then she sat Jazz down, helped her wipe the tears from her eyes, loosened the tight neckline of her Fenton Jumpsuit, and calmly talked to her. 

Jasmine was upset. "It's not _fair!_ " she wined. 

"What's not fair?" 

"Everyone! They are all so... so... _stupid!_ They said that I was wrong, that my mommy and daddy were wrong! How would they know?! They can't even figure out the easiest math problem!"

"Now Jasmine, it isn't nice to call your friends stupid."

"They _aren't_ my friends," the little girl complained. "And they _are_ stupid! That's a fact."

"That's not a nice word. If you say it again, then you might get yourself into trouble. I do not want to hear you use that word again in class."

"Fine. Can I say that they are ig-nor-ant? or un-intelligent? or ridiculously mor-onic?" The big words came out of her small mouth in a stumbling way as if she understood the meaning but not the pronunciation; she'd only ever seen the words written down and hadn't heard them used before. 

"Is that really what you want to use that big brain of yours to do? Find other unkind words?"

"Well, it's true! They are completely a-sin-ine."

"where did you even get that word from?"

"My books....well and the dictionary. And I know what it means," the young girl proclaimed in a snobbish tone as if she expected the need to fight to prove she knew what she was talking about, and enjoyed doing so. "It means it means foolish or un-intelligent. Ridiculous and stupid. Just like all of my dumb classmates."

"That's enough, Jasmine," the harsh tones of an authority figure to a misbehaving child was not something that teachers pet Jazz was used to and they had shocked her into silence. "Now you are going to go back into that classroom and you are going to say that you were wrong to say what you did and _apologize_ for calling your classmates mean names."

Jasmine Fenton, full of pride and a force to be reckoned with even at such a young age, began to wail, "but I wasn't wrong! _I am never wrong!_ I'm smart! Smarter than they are!"

"Jazz, you can be both smart and wrong. You are a very intelligent girl but, that doesn't mean that you are always right."

So simple of a sentence had rocked the world under her feet. 

"What? but if you're smart it means that you aren't wrong. If you know everything you can't be wrong," she whined building up momentum, on the verge of throwing another tantrum. 

"No, sweetie," The teacher said calmly and kindly. "Everyone can be wrong. Even geniuses. If you are incapable of making mistakes, of being wrong, and admitting when you are wrong, then how can you grow or learn anything new? Do you know what word means incapable of learning anything new?"

Jasmine immediately answered the question that was asked of her. "Mentally deficient," she stopped for a moment to really consider the argument being made. " Are you saying that if someone is in-fall-ible or believes themselves to be in-fall-ible...then they _aren't_ truly intelligent?"

"how do you determine intelligence Jasmine? Is it just who knows the most or who is right the most."

"...or who is open to learning. Who never stops learning and asking questions, that's what you are trying to tell me. I need to be able to learn more to be truly smart, right?"

"You are already 'Truly Smart' Jazz, now you need to work on being open-minded, kind, and courteous to others."  
__

Jazz smiled softly at the memory and then shook herself out of the past and returned to her list. 

  * Affirmative: Mom and dad work for the government.   
  

  * Negative: Their jobs aren't always related to ghosts.



In fact, most of the inventions that have problems–"bugs" her parents called them– and didn't work or _exploded_... all had one thing in common: they were the more ghost focused work. 

  * A: Mom and dad work hard on their inventions. 



You can work hard and still get the wrong answer. You can be a genius and still be wrong. 

  * N: Most of the inventions don't work.



And the ones that do, never work quite as expected or are the ones that don't have anything to do with ghosts.

  * A: Weird stuff that happens in the lab.  
  

  * N: Textbook says no.  
  

  * A: Mom and Dad have research.



Theories that they _can't_ prove. Evidence backed up by claims, instead of claims backed up by evidence. Hearsay and anecdotal evidence that no one can verify. Assumptions and presuppositions that never really allowed for true unbiased research. That is all her parents have; they have no authentic research and no data. 

  * N: Mom and Dad have never even seen a ghost.  




Scientific Method that her parents loved and praised, proved them wrong. Their science tapped out on the first rung of the Scientific Method: observation. No observations, no hypothesis, no research,... instead they jumped straight to experiments, and conclusions. 

  * N: Mom and Dad don't even know for sure.
  * N: Mom and Dad have been wrong before: exhibit A) Santa exhibit B) Tooth Fairy.
  * N: Everyone thinks Mom and Dad are...crazy  
  

  * A:...they are my Mom and Dad.



No, Jazz quickly scratched that out...

  * ~~A... they are my Mom and Dad.~~



Her affection for them as people was a logical fallacy in terms of this argument. She couldn't hold on to this belief simply because they are her parents. She knew that. She had to be practical and impartial if she ever wanted to settle this. Divorce herself from her parents emotionally, for just this moment. See her family from an outside perspective and...she knew what everyone on the outside thought...

N: Mom and Dad are... crazy

She still _loved_ them. Of course, she still loved them. They were still influential. They were her heroes...but being a logical minded intelligent girl...Jasmine Fenton could no longer deny that both the available evidence and the scientific method that her parents taught her...proved only one thing. 

* * *

Conclusion: _Ghosts are not real._


	3. An Adjusting Course, Guided Through Rapids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasmine had accepted the conclusion that ghosts weren't real. She had accepted that her parents were wrong. She had accepted the fact that her parents might have something...wrong with them to believe such a thing. But, this only made her feel more off-balanced and confused. Jazz needed something else that she could cling to, to help her get by in this crazy world. Preferably something with more reputable backing.

As Jasmine grew older, her Fenton-brains blossomed even more and more. No one could deny that her parents were geniuses, with seven PhDs held between the two of them. (Even if some of those PhDs were not based in universally recognized and accepted fields.)

Jazz took after her parents in brains and sometimes in temperament. She could be excitable and obsessive when it came to something she valued. With very few, if any, friends to keep her preoccupied, the most important thing in her life quickly became her grades. She approached each assignment with the same fervent, at times delusional, single-minded energy that her parents used when they approached their projects.

Her focus changed again. Now she had a new journal, color-coded a new color, with an overstuffed agenda detailing every homework assignment, extra credit project, exam prep, and study time meticulously planned out. As well as various notes that she termed especially important.

One day she, out of curiosity, began looking into the differences in the human mind. She was drawn to various case studies trying to pinpoint precisely what was...off about...her family. After all she wasn't ignorant, she knew that some of the things that people whispered about her family behind their backs... had some merit. Jazz couldn't really deny that there was something... _wrong_ with her parents.

Mom and dad are crazy... _crazy_ , she had heard that word tossed around so often and frivolously. All her life, people used it as a synonym for _Fenton_. Crazy, the dictionary that she found stated the meaning to be: "mentally deranged." Diving deeper into this world and the history of where it stemmed from, she found that most experts seemed to agree that the word was antiquated and had lost most of its true meaning. It was the word of schoolyard bullies, not of standing in any scientific community. It was such a crude and weak word. " _Crazy_ " was not an actual name of a condition, so she would have to look beyond 'crazy' for her answers.

Jazz followed that word and stumbled headfirst into the world of _Psychology_.

She quickly became hooked, as evidenced by her notebooks warping to assimilate every term she chased down. She was essentially copying down the DSM IV into her journal while adding personal anecdotes that went hand in hand with her diagnoses. Thus a new journal topic, the very beginning of what would later become a detailed record of two subjects in particular...her own parents, the town loons, the ridiculous and insane Maddie and Jack Fenton.

Psychology appealed to Jazz in a way that nothing else had ever done before. She became quite enamored with it. It was the first thing that seemed to make sense after the fundamental change of finding out her mom and dad were...well, _wrong_. Ghosts had been such an integral part of her life for so long, that when she finally accepted reality, she was left out of place and off-balance. Lost admits a sea of rapidly changing waves. She needed something, _anything_ , to cling to...and her own research provided her just the right piece of driftwood to keep afloat. She replaced the notion of ghosts with the facts she learned about the psychoses from the books she got from the library.

They fit surprisingly well.

She also poured over several—for lack of a better term—ghost stories, trying to find the scientific bread crumb of truth within the delusions. It was a way for her to rationalize her childhood and the teachings of her parents. She discovered that her newfound love of Psychology had historical roots in people believing in spirits or mythical creatures.

Her mom and dad were not... _completely_... _wrong_... just misguided. They missed the mark. They were hunting down the same ideas that she was learning about: depression, grief, anxiety, ect...right? They were just...mistaken with how they were going about it... They had their ideas stuck in the dark ages, where such disorders were said to be signs of haunting or overshadowing... Otherworldly ghouls and monsters that plagued and tormented humans. In a way that might've been easier to accept that it was a malevolent spirit making you upset, rather than an adverse reaction to trauma or a chemical imbalance in the brain.

Soon her interest in Psychology began to overtake her life; as she continued to ignore the fact that she was just like her parents. Jazz tore through book after book. She memorized complex ideas and diagnostic criteria, at a tender age. Jotting them all down in her journals.

She read through books on delusions and how people can break from reality. She wondered if her parents had ever actually seen a ghost..or heard one because auditory hallucinations were just as common, if not more, than visual ones.

She read about attention disorders: that lead to being easily distracted alternating with intense hyper-focusing on something. To the point of ignoring everything else...even basic needs like food or sleep... or if you are a parent your own children. Jazz herself failed to see the irony of missing dinner and staying up all night to finish that section.

She read about social anxiety, perfectionism, and the intense stress put on oneself to achieve. That book really only helped her become _more_ of a perfectionist. But that was ok, even encouraged in some cultures. She was giving it her all –her mathematically impossible 120% –and being perfect, that can't be a bad thing. At least not _too_ bad of a thing. Right? Sure like anything it could be taken to the extreme and become unhealthy...but she now knew the dangers to watch out for... So she could avoid them.

Jazz read all about social behaviors and development. However, she approached everything like an equation or an experiment...that was her biggest problem. Strangely enough, _knowing more about being social_ : the act of memorizing the definitions, the hormones released, and how it affected her brain and her development...Did precious little good actually helping her _to be social_. She could write a beautifully worded essay on why having friends and a solid support group was crucial for healthy living...but she still couldn't make friends herself

Jazz read about the theory surrounding locus of control and whether or not luck controls an outcome or if someone can work hard to assert control over a specific outcome. The belief that you can change your situation was half the battle...and Jazz was stubborn and opinionated, so she certainly believed that she could make a difference.

Jazz learned about the average childhood development and compared her own to what the peer-reviewed experts claimed a child needed. That was when she truly realized just how far along she was... She had always known that she was faster than her peers, but now she could see it in a quantifiable manner. It was also when she started to see the many many ways her household and parents were...unorthodox...and how that impacted a growing child. There were things that her parents didn't give her...like much attention for instance, so she had to find it elsewhere. Jazz attempted to match her growth to the book exactly, going through the motions as if the psychology book was a map. As if she could take her own development into her hands and _force_ herself to reach the standard of adulthood.

Jazz studied depression, grief, OCD, schizophrenia, and so much much more. She inhaled every scientific journal about the human mind. She did what no actual psychologist would _ever_ encourage (and if she had taken the class with a trained professional instead of all self-study she might have known that): she began to see these disorders in herself and those around her. She clung to these labels and acronyms to help her navigate the world. She saw them everywhere and chased after them...much in the same way her parents did with invisible and unconfirmed sightings of spirits.

She had even read book after book on parenting, and after coming to the conclusion that her parents were... _not very good_ at it, she vowed to try and be there for her younger brother.

———

A new type of journal began, with a new color to indicate the change. Again. Jasmine Fenton began detailing absolutely everything she could about _her little brother's_ development. She knew from experience that her parents were not going to provide what he needed, so...she had to. Right? Even if she was his sister and only about two years older than him... She knew what to do... So she should do it. Right? She had _studied_ this, and she had to try to ensure that despite their unnatural household... his growth would be as natural and healthy as she could strive to make it.

Danny didn't always appreciate her help.

Sure, when he was younger he had thought nothing of their parents working long hours in the basement lab and going days or sometimes even weeks without seeing much of them... Of Jazz learning to fend off what mom cooked as well as cook something herself or order take out... Of how often things were _volatile_ and _explosive_ around the house... Of tasks around the house being left _undone_ because their parents were _busy_ or _got_ _distracted_...

It might have briefly occurred to him that while Mom definitely kissed some booboos, the majority were taken care of by his older sister. That while Mom or Dad would drive them to school, it was always _Jazz_ that buckled him up. She made sure that they actually got to school by reminding their parents as many times as was necessary. It was _Jazz's_ neat handwriting that wrote things on the calendar to keep track of various activities: Danny's Space Camp, Parent-Teachers Conferences, or School Field Trips... The same looping neat letters were on the grocery list, too.

It was _Jazz_ that Danny would go to when he had a nightmare, because sometimes mom and dad were working late... Besides, Jazz's room was right next to his, so most of the time she heard him first. Sure, there were times when he would specifically seek out _Mom_ and crawl into her bed with her, but there were just as many—if not more times—when Mom's bed was _empty_... So, Jazz would come into the parents' room and find her little brother tucked under their parents' covers alone and shaking. She would have to coax him out and then deal with the nightmare herself.

When Danny had grown old enough to question these kinds of things, they had just become _normalized_.

Jazz tried to play the other side of the whole ghost argument too. Didn't their parents understand how _impressionable_ little kids were? Didn't they know that Danny believed their every word? Didn't they realize that they were scaring Danny? They were talking about monsters, dead _evil_ things coming back from beyond the grave that only wanted to hurt people; Danny already had nightmares. It didn't help that he was taught that the monsters under his bed were _real_. She couldn't let Danny be as lost as she had been. So it was up to her to be the voice of reason, that told them all that ghosts are not real.

Not that that ever stopped their parents. Jack and Maddie weren't quitters. Nothing slowed them down, and nothing ever shook their indomitable belief in their research.

Well, ... _almost_ nothing.


	4. We Build Sandcastles, Waves Still Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the week before the Unveiling of their parents "Greatest Accomplishment to Date". Decades of work coming to a head, and everyone in the Fenton family was collectively holding their breaths in anticipation...

Jack and Maddie Fenton were scientists. They were... self-proclaimed _ghost hunters_... But more than hunters; they were inventors. 

Gadget after gadget furnished their home. Some inventions were only half-constructed. Gutted electronics, junk, littered the house in odd locations. Some had undergone multiple trials and various prototypes. Most had something to do with ghosts. Most never worked like intended. 

Many malfunctioned or imploded. 

A few miraculously struck gold and worked. A few were especially dangerous.

However, all these inventions dramatically shaped the childhoods of Jasmine and Daniel Fenton.

Whenever something broke around the house, their dad saw an excuse to "improve _"_ it: the oven, the dishwasher, the downstairs-bathroom sink, and much, much more. These improved items had the added " _advantage_ " of being “ _ghost proof_ ” and gave off an unsettling _glow_ . They also sometimes did... _strange_ things. A lamp that turned on despite no one using it... Most likely because of faulty wiring connected to the switch. An oven that ran on dangerous levels of heat, because it was designed to harness ecto-paranormal power. A sink with the hot land cold functions reversed... except for when it randomly switched on you, so as a result: you never knew what temperature which tap controlled... In fact, regarding anything inside Fentonworks, you never knew what to expect... Even if you lived there your whole life...

Those inventions always caused some kind of trouble: whether it was mutating their dinner, knocking out the power, covering them in strange goo, blowing up in their faces, or just the simple action of stealing away their parents’ attention. Jasmine had no love for any of their parents’ contraptions. While Danny thought they were... _weird,_ although, a couple he admitted could be “cool”–if they ever worked. Long story short, both children learned long ago to brace themselves whenever mom and dad had a new... project. 

The current project was a _“Very Big Deal,”_ the culmination of years and years, even decades, of work. They’d even tried to get governmental recognition. That prized invention that they had given decades of their life to, their “Greatest Accomplishment To-date”: The doorway to the dimension of ghosts was almost ready to present...

So, the whole Fenton Family was slightly on edge. The prospect filled their parents with tense anticipation: like how a child acts in the days preceding Christmas... or how their dad acts. Actually… maybe that wasn’t the best analogy because Christmas was... _interesting_ with the Fenton Family. 

Jazz felt no excitement... no, none at all. Nervous yes, excited no. She was bracing herself for the fallout _after_ the Portal. What will happen when this newest, most influential invention is up and running, or far more likely when it _fails_?

Danny had always been a little more invested in their parents’ ideas, and it seemed like he couldn’t help being a little excited... But he too was nervous. He’d probably already been getting trouble at school because of this highly public project–because of course, their parents would tell everyone they could. Amity Park, and therefore their school, was well aware of The Fentons and their... _escapades._

It was hard to not feel like they were in the calm before the storm... Or the moments of a bomb ticking down to detonation. 

\---

Late at night, Jazz heard a light, hesitant knock on her door. Soon a timid voice followed, “H… Hey, Jazz?”

“Yeah, Danny?” She opened the door to see her brother in a moment of childlike weakness. He looked so unsure and young, eyes tilted down and expression one of worry... if not fear. It surprised Jazz to see him at her door, and she wondered if he had had a nightmare. He was getting older, and while she didn’t know if his Nightmares had stopped, he had certainly stopped _coming to her_ because of them. 

Jazz let him in and motioned for him to sit with her on her bed. He stood there unmoving, and just looked at her for a while. As if trying to find the right words. 

Finally, he asked, “... What do you think will happen at their... _demonstration_?” 

Oh.

She sighed, not knowing what to say. “... Who knows? I just hope we can get out of the blast zone.” 

“What if their Portal _works?_ ” his voice shook slightly with fear and uncertainty.

“Danny,” Jazz said as if she was getting ready to talk someone down from a ledge. Maybe in a way she was: The Ledge of Delusion. 

“I mean, think about it... They have spent _years and years_ on it, and we both know that they are geniuses... What if what they made actually works?” he argued. Jazz was suddenly 7 years old again, asking these same questions. Desperately looking for anything that could help her affirm her parents’ beliefs–and she had wanted them to be right–but they... weren’t. They just couldn’t be.

“It can’t.” 

“Why not?” he asked. 

“You _know_ why.”

“Cuz, _ghosts aren’t real?_ ” He scowled and crossed his arms, scoffing. That phrase–while true–had been a weapon against their family over and over. It often only caused resentment and pain. 

“Do you believe in ghosts, Danny?” 

He froze. He didn’t want to answer, and Jazz understood. He didn’t want to disappoint or hurt their parents by denouncing their ideas, even if he didn’t really believe them. But he also didn’t want to be grouped in with them. He didn’t want to pick a side. Of course, she understood. Although, personally, she refused to stand idly by on the fence... In fact, part of that was for Danny’s sake; he at least grew up always knowing that there was another side.

“... I... Uh... No?” He stopped, collapsed down on her bed with his head in his hands. He stayed like that for what seemed like a while, then finally he looked up, took a deep breath as if gathering his strength, and gave a full answer, “... No. No, of course not. I don’t believe in ghosts.” 

After a while, he continued, “... but I mean... well... there’s all the uh... weird stuff that happens. The teenagers who go missing by the cemetery, the stories about the haunted locker at school, the creepy feeling I get in the lab... Plus, ... Well, if only ghosts were real, then... our parents ... wouldn’t be nut jobs.” He spread out his hands as if pleading with the world to just have a normal family.

“Oh, our parents would still be crazy. Just in another way,” even Jazz herself wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. “As for the other stuff, there are logical explanations.”

Danny cut her off, not wanting to hear another one of her lectures. “Hey, if it… turns out that they really uh are right about ghosts. Do you think all their anti-ghost stuff really works?” 

“... You know what we used to call ghosts now has a logical reason. What people used to think was the work of ghosts usually turned out to be psychological. The man wasn’t haunted, he had depression. The girl wasn’t possessed, she just had schizophrenia. As for why teenagers go missing at night, well... I almost wish it were ghosts.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know,” he muttered.

Yeah, Jazz had already told him most of this stuff before. 

There was a beat of heavy silence. 

“So... what do you think will happen? ... I mean, if it doesn’t blow up?” He asked again.

“If there’s no explosion, my guess is nothing, really.”

“That seems... anticlimactic. Nearly two decades of their work and just ... _nothing_?”

“Maybe it might finally get through to them that ghosts aren’t real.” 

“It would crush them though: destroy their dreams.” 

“We all have to wake up and accept reality eventually, Danny,” she breathed gently. 

He grimaced, and then he too sighed, “Yeah... I guess so.”

“Besides... They’ll bounce back. You cannot keep that ingenuitive Fenton genius down!” She said, in an overly boisterous voice that imitated their dad, shoving his shoulder playfully. He laughed.

“Speaking of which, I saw your pretest scores.” 

He stopped, face falling. “yeah... And?” 

“And what? They were very good. I am proud of you, little brother.” 

“Buuuut?... what’s your real point, Jazz? You never compliment, you only nag.”

“I do too compliment. I am serious. They were very good,” she paused. She wondered if she should continue–probably not. Danny never listened to her with stuff like this. She should just shut her mouth and not give her unwanted advice. 

It turned out she didn’t even need to say anything else; Danny’s expression darkened. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought up school and grades in the first place; It always ended up going south.

“Yeah, but not good enough, right?” he spat. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” he muttered. “It was just a beginning of the year pretest.”

“I understand.”

“I got a 90!”

“I know.”

“that’s good!” 

“I never said it wasn’t.” 

“That’s an A!”

“I know that.”

“Then what the heck is your problem?!” 

“I just don’t want you to settle for a 90, just because it’s an A when I know you can do better. You have incredible potential, and you shouldn’t ever sell yourself short.” 

“Yeah yeah, Of course, I need to take your advice because _you’re the genius_ ... so smart and you know everything, and you’re never _ever_ wrong. So, I should just try to be 100% perfect, just like you.”

“Danny, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Whatever! I’m going to bed. I have school in the morning.”

“Danny, wait!”

“What now, Jazz?” 

“I really am proud of you.” 

“Uh, huh?” he said, rolling his eyes. 

“Really, really. You did a terrific job.”

He said nothing.

“And I get that high school can be rough, and I want you to know that you can always talk to me about anything, no matter what.”

“Jeeze Jazz, it's just high school. What’s the worst that could happen?”

She sighed; it had been a long while since Danny opened up about anything. 

“Good night, Danny.”

“G’Night, Spazzy.”

\---

Jazz was right, again.

The Portal didn’t work, because _of course_ , it didn’t. 

She knew it wouldn’t.

Danny called it an anticlimactic bummer. 

Maddie called it a slight miscalculation.

Jack called it a minor bug. 

Jazz called it a foregone conclusion.

It went about how Jazz had predicted; that is to say, nothing happened. 

On the night of the demo-demonstration, the entire family had gathered together to witness the activation of The Portal. If all had gone well, then Jack and Maddie would have gone through with their official presentation to a group of investors and governmental sponsors. Jazz was just glad that her parents had decided on a trial run: so that when it... inevitably failed, they wouldn’t lose face. Although, truthfully, they didn’t have much of a reputation to lose. 

Jazz was less glad that she’d had to attend the said trial run. But it was unnegotiable. A Fenton Family Emergency, all Fenton-Personal must attend. No arguments and no exceptions. And–for better or worse–she was a Fenton. So rather than make her way to her usual study session at the library, she instead sighed and headed downstairs.

She stopped before she reached the official lab area. 

“Not so fast, Jazzy, ya eager-beaver. You know the rules...” her dad said, unable to keep his exuberant smile off his face. He pointed her towards the lab closet that held... the Fenton-dex Anti-Ecto Hazmat Suits. 

“Oh, c’mon dad. I won’t even be that close to the Portal. Besides, can’t we get started already?”

Her father was itching to start, and she might have gotten away with persuading him to look the other way... if it weren’t for her mother. “Jazz, honey, hurry and get your suit on! We are starting soon!”

“Gotta go Jazzerincess! Don’t Start Without Me, Mads!” Her father seized her suit and threw it at her as he rushed to fiddle with his precious pride and joy. 

“Worth a shot,” she muttered slowly, as she tugged on her accursed Hazmat. Well... it was a Fenton event, and so she supposed it made sense that she had to look the part. She trudged up to where her parents buzzing around the metallic techno-hole they had created in their basement, like bees in a hive. 

“Ok, one last test before the official governmental unveiling. Jack, honey, can you check the nuclear power gauge?” Madeline Fenton was running through her checklist. Her husband was following her every direction like he could read her mind.

But... her two children stood off to the side looking bored.

“All good, Mads. Still in the green,” Jack chirped back in a joyful tone.

“Perfect. Ecto-shields in place?” 

The lab shimmered with peculiar energy. “Check.” 

“Failsafe switch on?” 

“Check.” 

“Generator running?” 

“Check.” 

“Safety equipment on?” Here, Maddie finally looked back at her very, very unhappy children. 

“Unfortunately,” Jazz said now that she was actually wearing the custom-made hazmat suit. It matched her mother’s style but, the teal was a softer shade–as if it being in Jazz’s favorite color could cause her to like it more–with some black lines for definition. Danny was right beside her in the same, except it was white and not as feminine. And to make matters worse, both suits displayed the old version of the Fenton Works Logo: a cartoonish version of their dad’s beaming face. They were also beside each other in their discontent. 

“Safety first, kids. It’s dangerous down here, so if you want to be in the lab you must wear a hazmat,” Maddie said with a playful teasing tone. 

“That argument doesn’t work, when we don’t want to be in the lab or wear a hazmat,” Jazz muttered under her breath to Danny, and he gave a slight snicker. 

Their mother didn’t hear, she was far too preoccupied with continuing her checklist. “Everything all set?” 

“Checked and double-checked,” Jack responded, squirming with fervor like there were ants in his jumpsuit. 

“OK, now we start the countdown on one throw the switch.” 

“Rightie oh, Mads!” 

“3...2...1... Go!” 

“Bonsai!” Jack threw the switch before Maddie had finished the last word. The Portal sparked, and there was a quick flash of what looked like the swirling beginnings of something forming. But... it was short-lived and unsustainable. _The whatever_ it was... that was trying to develope quickly fizzled out and died. 

“Hmm...” their mom didn’t sound happy.

But their father’s boundless optimism was undeterred, “Did you see that? We’re so close, Maddie!”

“Ok... We can fix this. Hmm... We just need to... regroup and try again. Take two. Honey, try toggling the switch.” 

Jack did. The strange phenomena lasted for even less time. They tried again, and again... and again. Toggling. Adjusting. Triple checking. 

Nothing. 

“Well, that was eventful,” drawled Jazz, in an irritation she couldn’t quite help. “Can we leave now?”

Their parents paid no mind to her. So she took that as a yes, and headed up to the kitchen, Danny followed her. Jack and Maddie probably didn’t even notice that the kids had left.

“So... what now?” Danny asked after they were out of earshot from the lab, sinking down into his chair at the kitchen table. 

What now, indeed. 

“Now, they will probably spend all night trying to fix something that’s not even broken,” Jazz said, already getting ready to order takeout. 

“but... it... almost did... something.”

She stopped, the house phone gripped tight in her hand.

... Yeah, almost.

They all saw with their own eyes what had happened. For a brief second, even Jazz herself had thought it might actually work... but almost wasn’t good enough.

“Sure, it was functional if that’s what you mean... we know their stuff is theoretically sound,... but... It didn’t work. It won’t ever work. There is no ghost dimension for it to find: it’s their entire premise that is wrong.”

“Yeah,... I just hope they don’t take it too hard.”

“They will be ok... they’re... them.” For better or worse, their parents weren’t likely to let this stop them. Jazz resumed the speed dial.

\---

It wasn’t the Portal failing that surprised Jazz, no obviously not. What surprised her was how her parents took it... Badly, really, really… _badly_.

The next morning should’ve warned of the dilemma to come.

Jazz woke up when her alarm went off at 6:45 am. Just because it was now the weekend didn’t mean that her routine could change: it is integral to mental health to wake up and go to bed at consistent times. After her daily exercise regimen, she headed downstairs.

It shocked her to run into her brother at the foot of the stairs.

“Hey, Danny, you’re up early for a Saturday.”

He took a huge breath and exhaled with his word, “... yeah...”

He didn’t look like he slept well. He glanced at the entrance to the kitchen, “I’m worried about mom and dad, I’ve never seen them like this,” He said in a quiet voice.

She looked up at the ceiling, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. Her shoulders slumped with the force of her sigh. “You know how they get after a... setback.” 

Danny shook his head, “No, it’s not just that... this… is... _worse._ ”

“Well... it was a bigger invention so... bigger letdown,” she said with a slight shrug. 

It wasn’t until she entered the kitchen, that she saw what he meant. If Danny had had a rough night, it was likely nothing compared to their parents. The energetic eccentrics sat slumped over the kitchen table, completely unresponsive. Her mother’s hair was messy and sticking up at weird angles that could only be from her running her hands through it repeatedly. They were both in the same jumpsuit as the night before and based on all observations they had probably not moved from the spot all night.

“Hey, Jazzy-pants,” Jack’s voice had none of his usual bravado or energy; for a moment Jazz could hardly believe it came from her father. “The portal didn’t work,” he chewed the words like someone who was still trying to understand what they mean. 

“I know,” she said like she was preparing to comfort a very young child.

“Nothing we make works,” Maddie added, confirming Jazz’s guess by messing up her hair even more with her hands. 

Danny gave Jazz a _‘see what I mean?’_ look. 

“That’s not true,” Danny assured them. 

“It’s Just your ghost inventions that don’t…” Jazz trailed off as Danny shook his head slightly. She got the message: ' _Please, just… Don’t start.'_

“You guys are being too hard on yourselves. It’s just a minor setback, right? What’s that thing that uh people say?… uh, the famous quote… You just found another way not to build the lightbulb… You’ll get it.” Danny gave them a stiff, forced smile and tried his best to be encouraging. And although this delusion wasn’t something that they should encourage, she understood her brother’s point. It wasn’t fair for her to take this opportunity to win this age-old debate, rub their failure in their faces when they were so emotionally compromised.

“and maybe this is a sign that… it’s time to direct your focus… elsewhere,” Jazz said, going for a more gentle suggestion.

“Elsewhere?” Jack said, tasting and trying out that word slowly. “So... No ghosts?”

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Jazz couldn’t help it. Danny gave her a panicked look, like bracing himself for what Jazz might set off. 

“No, not real,” repeated both their parents in a dead voice. Jazz’s response was a slack-jawed, shocked expression mixed in with a bit of guilt. How long had she waited for her parents to admit that? How many times had she reaffirmed her promise that one day she would make them see that? So, why did it make her feel so terrible to actually hear it, now?

“How about I make some pancakes?” She offered awkwardly. Danny took one more look at their defeated parents and turned and left.

\---

“They’ll be ok,” Jazz repeated in the living room a little while later. Although, she didn’t know who she was trying to convince, Danny or herself.

“Jazz, I came down and found them hunched over a tub of fudge,”

“So?”

“It wasn’t empty. An almost full tub of fudge.“

“Oh,”

“Dad barely even _touched_ the pancakes you made, and Mom never once tried to take over and make them herself.”

“I know.” 

“They’re miserable, Jazz.”

“They are just going through a realization. A major paradigm has shifted for them. They are... adjusting, everything will be all right... once they accept reality and move on. In fact, they will be healthier once they let go of this delusion.” 

“So… how long will they be like this?”

“A couple of days? It shouldn’t be too long… they will bounce back before you know it. I mean… have you ever seen anything stop them?”

“No… but I’ve also never seen them… like this. They’re in so much pain.”

“I know, but... Danny this is a good thing… in a way.”

“It sure doesn’t feel like one,” 

“Yeah...” 

Despite her reassuring words, their parents’ attitude worried Jazz too.

In her journal, she recorded the symptoms of depression. 

They were despondent. Destroyed. They had given up. They seemed to have finally realized what Jazz herself had learned at age 7: ghosts are not real. This had shattered their confidence and energy. They seemed lost and listless and wandered around the house like emptied husks.

It wasn’t just two or three days, either. The week crawled by and yet it was over in a flash. Jazz drove Danny to school, made all the dinners, and made sure the household chores were done. While their parents stayed in beds. It wasn’t really that strange for Jazz to do these things, but usually, it was because their parents were working… now their parents weren’t doing… _anything_.

Danny said it was like their dreams had died, Jazz said it was about time that they had finally woken up. 

Died… hmm. Maybe Danny was closer to accurate than they realized because Jazz’s detailed observations lined up almost exactly with the stages of grief. 

Stage 1: Denial. The subject pretends that nothing is wrong. The Fenton parents had been in denial about the truth, communicated through their lack of evidence for... a while. 

Stage 2: Anger. The subject lashes out and in a high-strung rollercoaster of stress and frustration, as they rage against what they perceive to be an unjust world. That stage only manifested in small bursts or perhaps in the soundproof lab, but Jazz was pretty sure that at least her mother went through it. 

Stage 3: Bargaining. The subject pleads for reality to not be so and makes impossible ultimatums to the world. Isn’t that what they were doing when they tried to adjust the machine, fix it, turn it off and on again, toggle the switch, etc. Begging it to work instead of realizing the deeper problem: it didn’t work because their theories were wrong. 

… Now they had reached Stage 4 Depression. The subject shuts down, hopeless as everything they once enjoyed becomes pointless. Feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness plagued their mind, because of tying so much of their identity to their intentions.

However, there was a silver lining. Stage 5: Acceptance was next. They would get through this. This was a good thing. This would unravel the insanity that imprisoned them. No more delusions, no more deviant behavior, no more dysfunction, and no more distress. Now they could focus on more important things–like their children for a change. Or maybe using their real degrees to benefit an actual field of science. Regardless, they would get through this; they would bounce back, you can’t keep a Fenton down. 

This nightmare would soon be over.

And if Jazz could help them get to that stage, then everything would be fine.

\---

“No, seriously you guys should go do something. Just because your portal didn’t work, doesn’t mean that you should just waste away like this!”

“Ouch. I thought you were supposed to be the one that’s _good_ at stuff like this,” Danny muttered, as Jazz continued failing to rouse their parents.

“ _Go and do something_ , anything! When was the last time you guys were out of that lab? Go see a movie or eat out or just something!” 

“If you guys take a break and come back, maybe you will see something you missed. It works with my math homework,” Danny said.

“Or you could go out and forget all about that portal completely! You guys can’t let this keep you down. You’re Fentons! You always told us that Fentons don’t give up!” 

\--- 

“Thank goodness that they finally left. Getting out of this house will do them some good,” Jazz said in a strained voice. She had just spent the last hour trying to convince their parents to do something. But at least it _finally_ worked. 

“They are gonna be OK, right?” Danny asked, sounding just like when he was in her room the other night. 

“Of course, they are...” Their parents may have some... _problems_ but they were still stubborn geniuses, who didn’t care what anyone else said and never gave up. 

“It was so weird seeing them so disinterested and so... disappointed.”

“I know...”

A beat of awkward silence fell.

Jazz broke it first, “I think... I need to get out of this house too, I’m gonna head to the library.”

“Ok, actually... I was thinking about inviting Sam and Tucker over.”

“While Mom and Dad are out?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We’re not gonna burn the house down or anything. We were planning on having a horror movie marathon.”

“All right, just you know the rules: no one in the lab without safety equipment, parental approval, and adult supervision.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You really think I want to hang out with my friends in _the lab_ of all places?”

\---


	5. Face to Face with the Unimaginable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz thought that it was over. That after the portal failed things would get better. That their parents inventions were done ruining their lives...she really, really should've known better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've finally reached the accident! Yay! Took me long enough.  
> So, Jazz does mention the accident in canon, but we don't get much else in terms of what it was like. Like I said I will be taking cues from canon like episode synopsis and some plot points, but things will be different, more interconnected and drawn out. And I'm going more realistic, starting with the accident: Danny was practically electrocuted that means hospital. And intensive care. And Fenton Family fall out as the other three are left wondering what could happen. Of course, Jack and Maddie suspect some ecto-contamination. Jazz is more concerned about whether or not her parents' machine just fricken killed her little brother... little does she know.   
> We will pick up next chapter with Danny after hospital discharge... and everyone noticing things not quite being right. Jack and Maddie blame ghosts, Jazz blames trauma and puberty, and Danny just wants whatever the heck is happening to stop... preferably before his family starts noticing too much.

Jasmine retreated to her journal.

Inside was a tortuous mess of thoughts, impossible to make out.

Incomplete sentences that communicated nothing…

Other than the deepest, most intense primal _despair_. Ideas drenched in _fear_ met the page.

Normally, she recounted an event in a calm and collected manner. That structure shattered and splintered. Instead of a comprehensive recollection, this was a spastic explosion of indescribable emotions. Cries in the dark, _begging_ for an outlet as they ran rampant from her mind to the page... to detail this horrible, _horrible_ day.

\---

Not to long ago, Jazz had felt sure things were improving.

Their parents had spent the week refusing to complete even the most basic daily tasks. Although, she’d _finally_ persuaded them to concede to leaving the house. She knew going out would do them some good. Just as she had reassured Danny earlier, their parents would be ok. Convincing them had not been easy; the hours and hours of browbeating had worn Jazz thin, and she needed a break herself. So, she headed to the library. Danny said he wanted to invite his two friends over for a horror movie marathon or something. They were well on their way to restoring normalcy, or at least something that passed for it.

Everything was looking up; the worst was behind them.

Or so she thought.

So, Jazz left, and Danny and his friends were alone. In FentonWorks, an unstable high-tech deathtrap of a house... why oh _why_ did she ever think that was a good idea? That that was safe?

Disaster struck.

Her baby brother had been in a terrible accident. All because Jazz _hadn’t_ been there. All because of that _stupid f*@king portal_.

Jazz had assumed their parents’ insane research was through ruining their lives when it didn’t work... she really, _really_ should have known better.

Jazz was attempting to put the Fenton Portal nonsense out of her mind with a good book, when her phone screeched and jolted her out of her immersion.

The caller ID alerted her: her brother was calling… but Danny wasn’t who greeted her. Instead, two terrified, stuttering, crying, and incomprehensible voices overlapped: Danny’s best friends, Sam and Tucker. She got the gist from them, through the waves of inconsolable emotions: something... _bad_ had happened to Danny. 

_Really, really bad_.

Bad enough that the two teens had called an ambulance.

Jazz had to have called her mom three-times, and her dad twice before someone picked up. She relayed what Sam and Tucker had told her.

The Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle rushed to the hospital with all the desperation of Jack Fenton’s usual driving... and then some.

When Jack and Maddie got the full story and found out it was their ghost portal that did this, they wanted to pull Danny out of intensive care to take him home to the Fenton Lab to treat him for _ “ecto-contamination“ _ .

Jack and Maddie usually dealt with any sicknesses or injuries their  _ own  _ way... in fact, this was only the second time Jazz had ever been in a hospital–not including her own birth, the only other time was when Danny was born. So, she had kinda expected them to want to deal with this in typical Fenton fashion.

... But this was _ too _ serious to mess up.

Jazz put her foot down.

“Absolutely Not! Danny’s hurt! He needs actual medical care! You  _ cannot _ do this! Seriously, your  _ insanity _ is going to get him  _ killed _ !”

“Jazz, I know hospitals are very helpful… and important... But they lack the equipment and expertise to treat ghost-related injuries,” her mother said. Most of the time, people thought Maddie was more reasonable, intelligent, and all-around less insane than her husband. Sure, Maddie was calmer and less eccentric than Jack, but she was the one that helped to put these insane ideas into practice. She was arguably the one who was more dangerously deranged.

“Ghost?... related?...” Jazz could hardly believe that this was happening, that this ridiculousness was her life. The Fenton family was a bad joke, and she didn’t find it remotely funny. “The only way this injury is ‘ _ ghost-related _ ‘ is you!  _ You _ and your stupid obsession did this! You cannot do this! I... Will not let you! If you try to take him out of the hospital before he is medically discharged by a licensed  _ professional _ ... I wi... will... It will be concrete proof that your break from reality prevents you two from being suitable guardians... and I... will... I will call CPS!” 

“ _Jasmine_!” Her mother looked both hurt and appalled.

“No! no.” Maddie didn’t get to look at her like that, Maddie didn’t get to be hurt. _Danny_ was hurt, and it was all their fault. “No, this time you will listen to me! _I mean it!_ So… just Shut up and listen!”

Maddie’s fierce anger, at the disrespectful tone from her daughter, paled compared to Jazz’s own fury. Her mother’s mouth dropped open, but she was silent.

“This... was your invention that did this. How many times did I tell you, you were putting us in _danger_? For years I have tried to reason with you! For years I put up with your _negligence_ and _delusions_. For _years and years_ I have played damage control! But now look what happened!” Every single vitriolic thought poured out of her mouth like she was spitting acid. Every thought she never voiced. The cynical part of her told her she _wasn’t_ really surprised that something like this had happened, only surprised it took so long. Her parents weren’t necessarily _criminally_ negligent, but they were close. They said they cared about safety, after all, how many lectures have Jazz and Danny been forced to sit through about safety procedures? And yet that never changed the fact that there were often dangerous tools, stripped wires, and all sorts of hazardous prototypes everywhere. Danny had always been a curious kid… and reckless. He often gave Jazz’s mind, body, and heart, a workout, trying to keep him from messing with things he shouldn’t. So perhaps it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.

“This is all your _fault_!” She spat full of venom and pain, knowing that it wasn’t really _all_ their fault; _it was hers too_. She hadn’t been there. “ _You_ hurt my little brother! That alone is grounds for a CPS evaluation.”

She expended her rabid anger, leaving behind only desperation, “please, _please_ just for once... leave it to the _professionals_.”

“Mads,” Jack breathed, placing an enormous hand on his wife’s shoulder. People never understood how her parents could wind each other up and feed into the insanity, or one would pull the other back and rein it in. And if they ever considered that, they probably would always think about the calm, cool-headed Maddie reining in her bumbling, ridiculous husband. Although, just as many times it was Jack that reeled in Maddie’s stubborn, zealous mind. “We can check for exposure after they discharge him.”

“Jack, they... don’t understand what they are working with... they won’t discharge him if they can’t figure out what is wrong...” Jazz wasn’t being fair, she knew that. She would never accuse her parents of not caring about Danny... of course, they cared about their kids. Even if they were insane or distracted or whatever you wanted to call them, they _did_ love them very much. They were probably just as shocked and worried as she was... maybe even more so due to the other ‘ghost’ problems they were convinced Danny was struggling with. Her usually very calm mother was white-faced and her eyes looked misty. But Jazz couldn’t bring herself to care about that... Danny took precedent. 

“Mads, it’s not the same. You saw him... There’s no sign of ecto-acne. Its... no, it’s _not_ the same. He'll be ok,” Jack was still speaking softly, his voice guilt-ridden and grief-filled.

“That only makes me even more worried... oh Jack, how will this affect him?” Maddie Fenton, strong indomitable Maddie Fenton broke down in horrible, ugly, uncomposed tears. “We don’t know. What will be different? What we are working with is unprecedented, and these doctors don’t understand ectoplasm... and they won’t listen to us, they think we are _lunatics_!”

“Mads, he will be all right... but maybe Jazzy is right. We might not have the equipment or experience to deal with Danny’s other _non-ghost_ related injuries, and those might be a bit more important right now.“

__

As Danny spent his days in the hospital, Jazz spent hers using her diary as a therapeutic way for her to express her tumultuous emotions.

Her fear detailed in a horrific symphony of what-ifs and coulda woulda shouldas.

Her suffocating worry for Danny as she tried to wrack her brain for something, anything she had learned about electrocution–No! No, electro _cution_ with the suffix -cution implied fatality; it only applied when the subject is... _dead_ No!–Electric shocks and the recovery process.

Jazz unpacked her building anger and monstrous resentment at her parents. She would _not_ forgive them for building that damn abominable portal and not even considering the repercussions that their actions and the lack of safety preparation could cause. Analyzed her feelings of absolute soul-draining _helplessness_ and nauseating _guilt. t_ here was nothing–absolutely _f*@king_ nothing–she could do to help her little brother get better. All those injuries she had nursed, boo-boos she kissed, and disorders she studied couldn’t have possibly prepared her for this.

Jazz hadn’t been there. That was the horrible rotten truth. She was out at the library because she needed a break from the craziness that is their home. So she left. She left Danny alone. Then he got hurt. It was all her fault. She had sworn to be there for him. She had been protecting him ever since he was little, and now when he had needed her most, she had _failed_ him.

It absolutely terrified her. He could really... _die_. That unimaginable train of thought brought Jazz back to the “moving on” lessons her parents had insisted she and Danny participate in. To better equip them to deal with... the unspeakable. To come to terms with and accept death, rather than letting resentment and misery hold them back in the form of a malicious specter out for revenge against the living. Ghosts weren’t real, Jazz knew that. Danny wouldn’t become an evil, vengeful spirit-regardless of whatever else happened; because that was impossible. However, she couldn’t help but hope that maybe he believed at least somewhat their parents said and actually learned something from those ‘death drills.’ If he had to leave, she hoped he could at least come to terms with it and pass peacefully... At least that was one thought she tried to comfort herself with.

It didn’t work. Her baby brother could be _dying_. _Nothing helped_.

Could anything be done? Was she actually about to lose him? The doctor had already told her parents that there was a chance–an extremely heartbreakingly high chance–that he wouldn’t make it. She had seen the horrifying scar, and it had nearly stopped her own heart. She couldn’t lose him.

Whenever there was any problem in her life, she examined it bit by bit, broke it down, and studied the dissection of the event. She did the same thing now, to her own behavior, it was what made her recognize all those same stages of grief in herself.

Jazz had started grieving as soon as they had admitted Danny to the hospital.

No, that in and of itself wasn’t right. She had started the process _too early_... It’s all her fault. How could she have given up already? She had already written him off as dead and gone. What the hell was wrong with her!? How could her brilliant mind, that had always worked a little faster than average, have betrayed her and jumped the gun on this... extremely important thing. She had always been the fastest at solving equations. She usually knew the correct answer immediately–it was an ability that she had always loved... that she took pride in. She had no trouble recognizing patterns and following things to their logical conclusions... But this...

No...

No, she _did not_ want this. It was too early. No.

Her stupid genius brain only pointed to one logical conclusion.

 _Screw logic._ No. Jazz refused, point blank, to see that conclusion as even a possibility.

 _No_ , no, no, _no_. She was wrong. She _had_ to be wrong.

 _Please, oh please let her be wrong._ She usually hated being wrong, but now she would give anything for her snap judgment–that already told her it was pointless to hold on to this fleeting hope–to be wrong. Smart people can still be wrong. It was always a hard lesson for her, one she had learned in kindergarten and never really stopped learning. Was this another lesson? If it was, then she swears on her own life that she would never, ever forget it again...

Just let her be wrong this time.

Danny _wasn’t_ dead... she _should not_ be grieving... at least not... yet.

No! Not now, _not ever_.

Her conclusions were wrong. The doctors were wrong. She needed to have more faith in her little brother. _He wasn’t dead._ He was going to be fine. _Please, oh please, let him be fine._ She would do anything if her little brother could just be all right.

She was currently in the midst of stage 3, and she clung to Bargaining. She cannot leave. She will not. She refused to. He hasn’t died yet, and if she never allowed herself to go further in her grief, then he wouldn’t die.

Her little brother would be okay. She would not break down and assume the worst...

Danny was a Fenton; no one can keep a Fenton down.

__


	6. The Healing Pain, Proves We're OK.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's condition was technically improving... At an unprecedented rate at that. So why did this feel so far from over?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, wow fell off the face of the earth there. Lol. I have been playing around with how want this to progress. I am much more comfortable writing one shots... So some of this might be connected one shot periods. I hope to work my way up to my take on cannon events soon. Thanks to everyone who has read this and left kudos. Hope you stick around... Even if it takes a while... Sorry.

The doctor had already warned her parents there was a chance Danny _wouldn’t_ make it.

_"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, I feel its best to be honest with you about your son’s condition. The electric injuries that he sustained are… serious. Of course, it is still too early to know for sure… But you should begin to… prepare yourselves for the worst."_

That statement refused to stop replaying over and over in Jazz’s head. She was torturing herself with it. But sooner or later she had to stop uselessly dwelling on the worst case scenarios...

 _Prepare for the worst_. NO. Never. It felt like a betrayal to even _acknowledge_ the worst. 

Jasmine had often considered herself prepared for anything—it was mandatory skill growing up at Fenton-works. She knew preparation was vital to understand the consequences that they must confront. But…

But... Not that. 

Anything but that. 

No. Jazz had already wasted enough time falling to pieces. Now, she needed to do something productive, or she really was going to drive herself round the bend. Her brain didn’t function well without a problem to solve. Just like her mother and father.

The Fenton parents were practically wasting away in worry and guilt. 

And here she was, letting herself rot in the same way.

Eventually, mother, father, and daughter turned to do what they always did when they were stuck... Tried to invent their way out.

After, what was the point of being a genius if you couldn't _fix_ anything?

_So… do something. Work towards a solution. Be productive._

She wasn't prepared. she didn't know what they were facing. 

So... _Find out_.

Jazz scoured the medical section at Amity Park Public Library. Checked out several medical terminology dictionaries, first-aid guides, and even a few nursing school textbooks. No denying it; this was serious. Electricity had the potential to… irreparably harm so much: Heart, Brain, Lungs, Tissues, Muscles, Kidneys, Spinal Cord, nervous system, and skin. The sheer number of horrific symptoms, grizzly pictures, and catastrophic scenarios overwhelmed her every waking thought. These books didn’t belong to her, that fact was the only thing that stopped her from ripping the section marked Electrical Injuries to shreds.

 _No_. She couldn’t do this. 

_Stop!_ Jazz commanded herself. _Calm down! You are letting your emotions get the better of you. Freaking out or breaking down will accomplish nothing and help no one. Find facts and information. Aren't you supposed to be good at that? Just pretend that this is all a regular research project. It's just like an essay for school. Familiar territory. C'mon Dr. Fenton, you want to actually help people right with what you know right? So, put your stupid big brain to actual use in the real world._

The odds of dying from an electrical injury were… on the low side. Based on the stats, she’d found out that unintentional deaths by electrical injuries—and most of the time it was workplace injury—covered less than 0.5% of deaths per year. Out of the 4,000 people who suffered from a shock, only about 300 of those cases were fatal. 

That’s approximately only a 13% fatality rate, which—even bumping that percentage up to account for a margin of error—is still more than an 85% chance of survival.

Then optimistically, Danny had fairly good odds... right?

But even then, this could irreversibly cripple her brother; he might never be the same. 

But… No, she was doing it again, being paranoid. Assuming the worst.

She shouldn’t worry. Her little brother was going to be fine, right?

Why? Oh, why couldn’t she seem to _convince_ herself?

__

The hospital visitations made Jazz feel nauseous; she couldn’t stand to see Danny like that. But she was tired of hiding from this. She had to see him. She would look this twisted reality in the eye... And not give in to her logical pessimism. 

They had given him an oxygen mask to prevent asphyxiation. He laid in the bed, wired up like a sadistic parody of a Christmas tree. The side of his face, neck, arms, and hands wrapped in bandages to treat the topological scaring. To make matters worse, Danny was hardly coherent for most of the visits. It was pointless to talk; he probably couldn’t hear her, and definitely couldn’t respond. 

All she could do was sit by his bedside and watch. Watch the hands of the clock on the far wall, complete their circular path. Watch the occasional nurse bustle around the room. Watch and wait for some miracle she had failed to convince herself to believe in...

Yet. She was not going to stop trying... 

Watch the rate of breathing from the oxygen pump and the line on the heart monitor. She couldn’t ever really reach a conclusion on whether it was worry and paranoia that made them seem slower than normal…

___

The days snaked by, days comprising several full-body scans, ECG recordings, and multiple 24-hour periods of monitoring every slight change in condition.

But, in this case, time did heal these wounds.

As the days went by, it became easier to hope as even the daunting, elusive window of 15% was rapidly shrinking. 

Her bargain was _working_. 

The nurses and doctors went on and on about how Danny was a “fighter” and recovering much better than they expected–almost weirdly fast. A few days ago he was barely conscious, but now the difference was night and day.

Jazz came into the room and found Danny not only awake but sitting up in the hospital bed, looking beyond bored, as he listened to the nurse explain: that despite his apparent turnaround, to err on the side of caution, he should stay in the hospital until the end of the week.

“And don't forget to take things easy for at least a few weeks after discharge.” the portly woman finished, eyeing Danny with palpable suspicion.

“I know. I know,” Danny grumbled.

“And no matter how much your condition improves: Do. Not. Remove. Your IV.” the nurse stressed the last statement as if this was not the first time she had to say that.

“ _I won’t!_ ” he defended with a surprising amount of bite.

The nurse gave him one more _I’m-watching-you_ looks and then sighed and left. Now it was just Jazz and Danny, alone, in his hospital room. Their parents were off somewhere, most likely bugging the doctors with their insane theories.

“ _Did_ you remove your IV?” She couldn’t help but ask.

His answer was a groan as he threw himself down on his pillow, with his hands thrown up covering his face.

“So… how are you feeling today?”

“I’m fine, Jazz,” was his tired response. _Fine_ , as if she had simply asked how was his day at school. Fine, as if they weren’t having this conversation in a _hospital_. Fine, as if she hadn’t been driving herself mad. As if he wasn’t in danger of…

“Danny…” her throat constricted, and the room blurred and swam. “You have no idea how... _worried_ I was.”

That seemed to sober him a bit. He removed his hands and turned to look at her. “Yeah… but Jazz really… I’m…” he hesitated before a queasy smile spread across his face, “fine.”

He must’ve realized that he wasn’t supporting his claim very well, because he tried again, “seriously, I’m fine. You heard the nurse, they’ll probably grant me freedom before next week.” His hands twiddled with the IV tube, itching to be free.

Jazz watched his nervous energy and gave him a slight smile, “bet you can’t wait, huh?”

He snorted, “yeah, like I miss _school_ of all things.”

“You’re bored outta your mind here, aren’t you?”

“Yeah so really it’s the same as school... Just no friends.”

“Like Sam and Tucker haven’t been sneaking in whenever they can”

“Nah, Tuck wouldn’t step foot in a hospital if you _paid_ him,” his joke didn't quite mask his genuine feelings on the matter. “Sam’s been here a few times, though...” his voice grew quieter. Until he shook his head as if he didn’t like the direction that thought was heading and backtracked on the subject. “Besides, you’re the one here ever single visitation window, you would know.”

Jazz rolled her eyes at his lighthearted grumblings, but knew that he really did appreciate her frequent visits.

“What are mom and dad up to?” he asked suddenly, glancing at the other empty chairs set up for visitors.

Their parents, rather than visit their only son, only came to the hospital to _interrupt_ the doctors. They had convinced themselves that some impossible ghostly problems were causing Danny’s condition. Most likely an attempt to diffuse the guilt from themselves... So, they continuously offered their own brand of unique ‘ _expertise_ ’ to treat this _'contaminant'_. None of the hospital staff took them seriously.

“What do you think?” Jazz sighed.

“Are… they… blaming themselves?”

“Not as much as they should be,” she spat under her breath.

He must have heard—strange, that must have come out louder than she intended—because he immediately jumped to their defense. “Bb… bu… but it wasn’t their fault. Really, it was me... I… was the idiot that got myself… el…” his breath hitched. “K… ki…” his voice raised along with his breathing rate.

Oh no. He began convulsing and trying in vain to regain his breath as if something had knocked the wind out of him. 

Was he hyperventilating? Going into cardiac arrest? Having a PTSD flashback? panic attack? Why was no one rushing to his aid? The equipment wasn’t alerting the doctors. Jazz couldn’t do anything but uselessly watch...

Danny slammed his eyes shut and made a struggling, conscious effort to calm down.

“Danny!” _are you really ok?_ the repeated question stuck in her throat. 

She only noticed that she had grabbed on to him when he pushed her hand off his shoulder. “I’m F…Fine.” 

Jazz was really starting to hate that word. 

He cleared his throat and continued to excuse their insane parents' actions. “I… uh, m… m… mmessed around with stuff I shouldn’t’ve and… I ignored all their safety rules… It really… wasn’t their fault...“ he finished in a small, weak voice that Jazz very much did not like.

 _It was still them who created the stupid portal, to begin with_ , but she kept that thought to herself.

The awkward—and on Jazz’s side, _worried_ —silence stretched out before them.

_____

It was an inexplicable wonder, but… it seemed… that Danny was going to be ok. A miracle. A strange event that probably shouldn’t have been possible... The Fenton propensity for the _impossible_ had—for once—served as an _advantage_. And no doubt about it, her brother was a Fenton. He was a _fighter_ , a stubborn force to be reckoned with. How many times had she heard her dad’s boastful proclamation that “Fentons don’t‘ quit!” 

Danny had already survived so much insanity. He could… He _would_ survive this too.

This time Jazz didn’t need to eavesdrop; this conversation was for all the Fentons, even Danny. He was still sitting on his hospital bed, hooked up to various machines. Multiple doctors and nurses stood puzzling and worrying over the data of the tests. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, your son’s condition has been improving at a very rapid pace.” said Dr. Mortan, the primary doctor assigned to Danny’s case, frowning and looking at Danny as if he was an equation that wasn’t coming out clean. Danny seemed to shrink away from the man’s scrutinizing gaze.

“That’s wonderful!” Maddie said before her face fell too as she noticed the man’s demeanor, “but… you don’t sound happy, Dr.”

“To be frank, Mrs. Fenton, your son’s results are…” he stopped and seemed to reconsider his words. “Unprecedented and... _Unpredictable_.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you remember that early on, I advised you... to start preparing for the worst?”

Maddie’s eyes flicked to her son. She closed them tight and took a deep breath as the worst-case scenario no-doubt played on in her head. She gave a shaky nod.

“His heart-rate was dangerously unstable, as well as his breathing. In fact, he went through several bouts of cardiac and respiratory arrest. We have been monitoring his progress, trying to stabilize it.”

“And you did… right? I mean I’m fine… I’m stable _now_ …” Danny interjected, reminding everyone involved that the boy they were grieving for was not only _alive_ but in this very room.

“That’s just it.” the doctor said as his attention ping-ponged from the written medical examination results to the boy they supposedly described, “no, we didn’t. According to the most recent results, your heart is still dangerously slow, and you could have another heart-attack any moment now.”

“What?... but I’m... fii-” Danny’s voice cracked at an unfortunate moment “-ine. Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re not in any pain?”

“Now? ...no.”

“Do you feel dizzy or disoriented? What about any tightness or an uncomfortable burning sensation in your chest?”

“Burning?” Danny asked softly, slowly putting a hand on his chest, twisting his face into a look of confusion.

“Yes, or even just a mild warmth.”

“W… war... Warm? No.” 

“Have any difficulty breathing?”

“Um uh... n… o…?” Danny cleared his throat, “no, uh... not really.”

The doctor’s mouth thinned, and he made a displeased hum.

“Isn’t that a good thing?! I feel nothing... That’s good!”

“Nothing?” The doctor rounded on his patient with growing concern. “Is anything numb?”

“No! Nothing as in... I feel fine! Absolutely in no way is there anything even remotely wrong. Nope… Definitely completely... feeling n... nor... um, uh… normal. No pain or any weir... I... I... mean... I feel fine!” 

“Are you sure there isn’t anything that you’re not telling us?”

“N... n..no, of course… not.”

“Anything _at all_ . Even something that you might consider nothing. A headache. Strange tingling or heaviness of limbs. _Anything_.”

“Nnnnope. Nothing nu-uh.Nada... no... uh... strange feelings what so ever.” Danny gave another crooked, almost painful, smile. Surely, he had to realize that his nervous rambling and repeated denial only made him seem _more_ suspicious, right? Then again, her brother had always been an open-book; he couldn’t hide anything to save his life. “So...” he said after a beat of silence; everyone was still staring at him, “shouldn’t I be free to go?”

“ _Technically_ , your condition improved,” the doctor said, tilting his glasses down and pinching the corner of his eyes. “ _But_ … It’s still inconsistent. If you recovered so rapidly and inexplicably, then there is no guarantee that it won’t fluctuate again. And this time, it could do so in _reverse_.”

The doctor and the nurse still looked so worried. 

Inconsistent. Unstable. Inexplicable. These words were _dangerous_ when it came to medical conditions. It was undeniable that Danny had improved, but not in the way anyone expected or understood.

 _But... who cares_ … Did that really matter?

The only thing that should matter was that her little brother was ok.

He wasn’t dead.

_He was going to be ok._

Shouldn’t everything be better now?

Or was that sentiment hopelessly naive?

“Then what would your recommendation be, doctor? Keep him here until it stabilizes?” Maddie asked, gripping Danny’s hand tight in her worry. He pulled it free from her grasp, like he didn't want to be touched.

“We’ve been monitoring him for several days now.” the doctor sighed. He then turned to speak directly to Danny, “I understand that this is difficult, and of course, you don’t wish to stay here indefinitely. To be honest, we’ve done all we can do. Even if you stayed here, it would only be to further monitor your condition. I still fear that this miracle might have a rebound. However, as of right now… You are in the clear. To further monitor your progress, we will send you home with a Holter Monitor. Make sure that it records your progress. If anything changes at all. And I do mean _anything_ _at all_. If you are doing anything, and you suddenly feel faint or short of breath. _Stop_ doing that activity. And come _right_ back here. Understand?”

“So I can leave then?” Danny asked again, a bit more hope bleeding into his tone.

“Yes, provided nothing changes from now, we will discharge you tomorrow morning.”

And just like that… the nightmare was over; just as rapidly and strangely as the whole thing had started.

____

After the hospital discharged Danny, everything shifted back to how things were... Well, to an extent. _Danny was ok_. He was up and about, although he still didn’t quite feel up to school—But, Jazz had to wonder how much of that was his accident and wasn’t just him dreading returning. His scars had almost... almost... totally faded away, and you could hardly tell that anything had happened. 

At least _physically_. But Danny was most certainly still affected. Jazz kept an even closer eye on her brother than before and recorded his recovery progress in her journal. 

He was jumpier following the accident; he startled easier, dropped things more often, and always seemed on guard against... something.

Their parents, on the other hand, had changed very little, _if at all_ , after the accident. Jazz’s resentment—that she couldn’t help—towards her parents hadn’t faded away; if anything, it only grew _stronger_. When Danny was in the hospital, they had blamed themselves— _as they should_ : it was their stupid portal. But now that he had recovered relatively unharmed, they could apparently return to their work guilt-free. She was almost cynically surprised that they had waited until Danny came home to turn their attention back to their _precious portal_. In fact, with Danny’s interference, that impossible portal, that they had spent decades trying to build, was now apparently somehow... _working_. This led to their parents holed up in the lab even more than ever.

So what else was new... Nothing was new.

There were no additional safety measures implemented. They didn’t stop prioritizing their research over their children. They also failed to notice that whenever they so much as mentioned the portal--or ghosts, or even the lab, or its various inventions--Danny’s face drained of blood. Sometimes he even started to tremble. This had _traumatized_ him, and their parents didn’t even realize it.

______

One night it was particularly bad. Danny suddenly stood up, looking a little green in the face, like he was on the verge of throwing up. He practically threw his chair behind him in his haste. 

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Their mother said, pausing her in-depth conversation about her–honestly graphic and gruesome, especially when they were trying to _eat_ –plans for once they caught their first ghost from the portal. Jazz's seething anger miraculously lost the fight against her self-control; she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her mother’s cluelessness. She still wanted to groan and bang her head on the table, or maybe forgo subtlety and diplomacy and start chewing the woman out herself, but she settled for a glare. 

How had Mom not noticed? Danny was getting more and more disturbed by what she was describing. How could she be so careless? So oblivious? So downright neglectful? To talk about the lab, the portal, and what might come out of the portal in front of Danny? 

“Jus’ not... hh.. h’ngry,” her brother murmured, barely opening his mouth as if afraid something other than words might come spilling out. 

“Are you sick, Danno? We can get the Fenton Thermometer, it checks for flu bugs and ghosts!” Their dad asked as if more freaky Fenton gadgets would help. 

“NO!” Danny said too fast and too loud. An intense wild, almost feral fear blanketed his expression. He held his hands held out, trying to put a shield between him and his father. Seconds stretched into minutes--but felt longer--until he took a few sharp, uneven breaths and forced himself to calm down. 

He tried to speak again. “...I... I.. m.. mm.. mean, ... Nah, ... There’s no need.. heh... I’m f... fine. Really... just... tired.. and y’know... rough week.” 

“Ok, sweetie,” their mother said with a concerned frown. She got up, to feel his forehead, to check if he was sick. “Hmm. You don’t feel warm... actually, you’re... freezing.” Danny pulled away too quickly. That was another change; Danny hated being touched. “Go ahead and go to bed. Think you’ll be up for school tomorrow? It has been a few days since the hospital cleared you.”

“.... Maybe,” Danny looked like he was weighing his options between the troubles school would undoubtedly cause and–his eyes darted away from the door to the basement–and... Oh... The lab. Once granted permission, he made a mad dash for his room. 

Jazz scooted her chair out from the table, making a very purposeful sound. “I cannot believe you two,” she spat as she too left the table. 

___

“Danny?” She asked, a soft knock on his bedroom door accompanying her voice.

There was a yelp that sounded more like a frightened animal on the other side of the closed door. “ _ **DON’T come in!**_ ” he said. His voice sounded... off. Scared. All over the place. Strange... Distant and almost… echoing? Like he was miles and miles from her. 

“Danny? I... just wanted to check on you.“

No answer. 

"... Are...you ok?”

There was a loud thump. Did something fall? “I’m... I’m... ff… fine,”

The sliver of darkness under his door lit up impossibly bright as if someone had just turned on a crazy white light. 

Danny yelped again.

Seconds later, it was back to black. Although, in comparison, it looked deeper and darker than before.

“Danny, I’m serious. I’m worried about you,” she slowly tried turning the knob. Her brother, despite ordering her not to come in, had forgotten to lock the door.

She opened it. His room was pitch black, and the light from the hallway did very little to help. The only thing she could see was her own elongated shadow on the floor in front of her. 

“Danny?” even her own voice sounded... empty. Stale in the haunting silence. 

...

Silence.

...

She couldn’t even hear the sounds of his breathing. She wondered for a moment if he had somehow vanished. Gone from the room. Maybe out the window? But... No, that made no sense.

“Really, I mean it... if there’s something you want to talk about,” she told the unwelcoming room, feeling a little uneasy and wondering if he was even there to hear her. 

The shadowy pile of blankets on the floor moved slightly. “I’m fine,” it said. So Danny was here. 

“No, I don’t think you are,” she began gently. Why did it still feel like she was addressing an empty room? “Danny, it’s ok to...  _ not _ be fine. I mean, you just had a very traumatic experience. It’s normal for-“

He cut her off with a shaky laugh. “ _ **Normal**_?” his grave whisper seemed to carry much farther than it should have; reverberating like they were outside or in a high-ceilinged area, and not in his bedroom. It sent an involuntary shudder up her spine. 

The room grew colder; icy wind bit into Jazz’s bones. Danny should really close his window. How was it even this cold? It was still August, and winter was a long way off...

“Danny, if there’s something... wrong, you can always talk to me... o... ok?” Jazz felt awkward standing in his doorway–It felt more like she was standing at the mouth of a cave–telling him this, but... Something kept her from approaching him like she usually would have. It was strange. The shadows were so thick; the darkness was so... Oppressive. The deep blackness opened up like jaws about to swallow her whole. So, like a little child afraid of the dark, she refrained from entering. 

“Wrong? NO! ... No... Noth... n... Nothing is.... wrong with me!” It took him a moment to scramble to his feet. His movements were stiff and unnatural, jerky and uncoordinated; a puppet with limbs that weren’t cooperating. He even almost fell a few times. Was his foot asleep or something? 

“I’mm... f... f.. fine ...I... I don’t wan... need... to talk about... it, cuz th.... th.. eres... nothing... to.. tt.. talk about.”

Real convincing , little brother. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure! I... Am fine, Jazz. Mind your own damn business! Just leave me alone! **_Go! Away_**!” His door slammed shut in her face. There was no way Danny himself had closed it from the other side of the room... It was probably the wind judging by how there was a lingering frigid chill in the air... But even with that explanation... Jazz still felt slightly… unsettled. 

\---


	7. Scars from the Battlefield of Adolescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adolescence was a rough time, no doubt about that. And undergoing an extremely traumatic experience during that time of life when everything was already confusing, stressful, and overwhelming couldn't be easy. That must be why Danny was still struggling. It must be why these strange behaviors were far too overblown to simply be a product of changing hormones and overall puberty problems. 
> 
> Or was Jazz just making assumptions and blowing everything out of proportion?

> Preface:
> 
> It seems only fair to the adolescents that we correctly label the most dramatically significant years of life. It does no one any good to downplay what the average teenager must brave. Despite the detriment that arises as a result of carelessly diminishing the impact of youth, too often we mature adults do those who follow after a disservice. Therefore, I wish to gift this stage of development a proper term that validates the adversities that awaits a child as they leave their rose-colored childhood behind. I, like most people, struggled through my own teenage years and in the midst of them feared I would never endure. But I survived and, rest assured you can too.
> 
> If you have chosen to read this book, you must fall under one of three basic categories:
> 
> 1) You are yourself an adolescent, and despite the stereotypes of laziness and disinterest that are no doubt ascribed to you, you have found yourself drawn in by my little book. Perhaps it was the front cover, by which we do so often judge books on, or the title or something else that entice d you to pick it up. Possibly someone gifted or recommended it to you. Perhaps you simply selected it at random, out of boredom. If that is you, welcome. And may I commensurate you for the journey you are yet to embark on, or quite possibly have already begun.

Jazz was on the tail end of that metaphorical journey; she should be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel by now. And yet, she still felt so lost sometimes.

> 2) You are a parent. 

Ha. No, she really _wasn’t_. She wasn't Danny's parent. It wasn't her responsibility or job... No matter how much their actual parents were failing to live up to the role. 

But…

> Your sweet darling little angel has transformed into a completely different breed of creature, and you are at a loss why. Your child no longer opens up. He or she no longer wants you involved. And what are you expected to do? Just let your baby walk down that twisted and harrowing road to adulthood all by themselves? Likely you remember your teen years and worry for your child. Possibly fortune blessed you with a relatively tame adolescence experience, and thus you cannot understand what your child is going through. Perhaps you have tried every other so-called self-help book on the shelves and are at your wit's end. If this is you, you too are welcome. If being a teen is one of the hardest things, then _raising _a teen is about as high up there.

But at the same time… she felt every word cut through her with excruciatingly painful accuracy. This author didn’t pull his punches or sugarcoat anything. It was one reason she admired him so much. 

> 3) You are not a parent or a teen, yourself. Perhaps you know of one who fits the descriptions I have already given. Maybe you are an educator or something of that sort. Not a parent, but just as involved with adolescents in your life. Perhaps you are a grandparent or an aunt or uncle. Possibly even a brother or sister. Regardless of how and why you came across this book, allow me to welcome you. Now with that taken care of, let me say something that I am in no way the first person to say but still could stand to be repeated: Adolescence is a rough time. One of the most challenging times of life.
> 
> And of course, now you are rolling your eyes at this truism. You already know this, no matter who you may be. After all, everyone knows that, as assuredly as they know, the sky is blue. Nothing I am saying is new. 
> 
> But think for a minute about that statement. For just because we know something doesn’t mean we understand it. If we return to the analogy above, anyone can look up and see the blue sky, but does everyone know the intricacies of our atmosphere that causes the phenomenon? 
> 
> Are you aware of the intricacies that make up adolescence? What is adolescence, really? 
> 
> Adolescence is a war. 
> 
> A fierce and frustrating battle where a child enters but an adult leaves. There will be vicious fights, close encounters, and terrifying changes. You need a strategy to survive; a terrain map of what lies before your child, as nature enlists them in this war. This is where this book can help you and your child Survive Adolescent Battlefield Unscathed. 

Jazz turned the next page to the table of contents and slid her finger down until she found what she needed: _Trauma and Adverse Experiences._

> Trauma is any experience that makes one fear for one’s own life or the lives of others. These experiences can have lasting implications, as it subjects an individual to intense levels of emotional as well as psychological and physical distress. This disrupts their ability to function in everyday life. It is natural for a child to want to turn to the family unit or a trusted adult in these times. However, a teenager is more likely to seek solace in their peers. Adolescents are continually teeter-tottering between the need for independence and the desire for security. A confusing contradiction that only amplifies in times of extreme stress. 

Well... Danny fit that description. Definitely. 

And the truth was... He wouldn’t turn to their parents because... Well, they were _their parents_. Their insane, ghost-obsessed, neglectful, blind, and ever-busy parents. Obviously, he wouldn’t go to them if anything was truly wrong. 

In fact, even without him admitting anything... They had still labeled him _“ecto-contaminated”_ (apparently evidenced by many of the other inventions—read here every single f-ing one of them—targeting her poor brother. She supposed one invention hurting him just wasn’t enough.) So, her ever-rational parents wanted to put Danny through an intensive, invasive, and no doubt _Traumatizing with a capital T_ detox process. Which Danny unsurprisingly and very vehemently refused. For once, they’d been glad when Jack and Maddie inevitably distracted themselves again, so they didn’t make good on that threat of _helping_ Danny.

Jazz would’ve liked to think that her baby brother would go to her... Ha. No.

That too was foolish. 

Danny had long since stopped seeing her as an ally. Instead, she was his overbearing critic that he tried to hide from and shut out. He told her he was “fine!” and he didn’t want to be her “psycho guinea pig!” and can’t she just leave him alone and mind her own business and stop being an “annoying nosey know it all.”

So, all she could do was continue to monitor him from afar. 

Which brought Jazz to what she was doing now; knee-deep in her psychological journals and therapy books, categorizing typical teenage behavior. Things that were on the charted course for healthy development. Things that were–for all this word means in a household like theirs–normal. 

It wasn’t either strange or worrisome if an adolescent began to create distance between himself and his parents...

However, there were healthy distancing practices: things like making your own decisions, what to wear, what to enjoy, what you want to do, and what you think or believe. And rebelling when denied that outlet of independence. Then there was… _this_. What Danny was doing: something far closer to Avoidance Behavior indicative of trauma. 

An embarrassed teenage boy pushing away his mother as she kissed his cheek was normal. Looking like a frightened animal waiting to bolt out the door whenever anyone got close enough to touch him… was not. 

Slumping in his chair out of boredom and rolling his eyes whenever their parents started rambling was normal. 

But that is not how Danny reacted. 

At least, not anymore.

> Trauma causes the body to react in a fight, flight, or freeze response. 

Danny seemed to prefer flight. Running away whenever she tried to corner him and get him to just talk about his problems. And when Danny couldn’t avoid or leave the situation physically, he left mentally. When he clenched his eyes shut like that, it was uncanny how much it looked like he was in the midst of some sort of... PTSD flashback. Then… His eyes would glaze over. As he sat there and forced himself to not react to anything at all: this was Emotional Avoidance. Danny tuned out his parents not because he was a moody teenager and his parents were lame or out of touch, but because what they were talking about was unbearable.

> Our survival instincts kick in and are on high alert. After the incident, it is common for one to become subdued and tired as the body recovers. Essentially, falling back down from high emotional arousal def con 1. Usually, an individual stays in this emergency mode for only a short amount of time after the immediate threat has vanished. The trouble arises when one feels that they cannot return to normalcy.

At only a week since the Accident, it was still too early to give an official diagnosis. But not too early to see the precursors that could _develop_ into a Trauma Disorder. 

> Here, the neuroplasticity in a developing brain presents itself as a double-sided sword. On the one hand, it can bolster resilience and an ability to grow from these experiences. However, it can also be the reason that trauma and stress affect the adolescent brain so much worse than an adult brain. And if not addressed, can be the catalyst of disorders further down the line. 

Which was why, no matter how much Danny complained and hated her for this... Jazz had to do it. Once again, she was the one to look after her little brother. Her full-time job, and now she had an all-nighter shift ahead of her.

No, multiple all-nighter shifts. Until the problem was so _lved_. 

* * *

Adolescence is a time of change, both mental and physical.The body went through embarrassing moments when it seemed to betray you. You had to get used to having the body of an adult and the mind trying to catch up... or the opposite.

Therefore... _Theoretically._.. It made sense that... during puberty someone might become... clumsier… Right?

After all, they were trying to adjust to their new height, weight, and proportions...

And for a short while, these thoughts had provided some comfort…. But Danny’s fits of clumsiness came only after... _The Accident._ (Which had since become a proper noun in her mind.)

It was undeniable that this wasn’t simple clumsiness. Sure, sometimes Danny tripped, fell on his face, fell down the stairs, and somehow missed the chair he tried to sit on... But far more concerning was the act of _dropping_ things. Danny would be holding something: his video-game controller, the tv remote, a book he was reading, his phone, his silverware during meals, a plate as he did the dishes, you name it... Then seemingly out of nowhere, a _spasm_ would pass over him: his shoulders would tighten, his face would drop, his hand would go dead limp, and seconds later, whatever he was holding would come crashing down out of his grasp.

Was something wrong with his gross motor control?

Every time she watched her brother struggle with something like this, she wondered again why the hospital had discharged him. Sure, he had seemed to recover suddenly and miraculously… But that only further proved that his condition was sporadic and unstable. How naïve was it to have ignored all the warning signs? To have assumed that everything was suddenly and inexplicably solved. Didn’t the doctor even warn them that these instabilities could far too easily become negative? They just hadn’t wanted to listen. These late-onset symptoms were arguably worse than the topological scaring. How could she convince Danny–let alone their oblivious parents–to go get him tested for a motor neuron disease?

* * *

Jazz had just watched Danny’s spoon slip out of his hands and _crash!_ into his cereal bowl with a loud _clatter!_ as the metal hit the glass. And what’s more, his expression when it hit told her a couple of things. There was some frustration, but not too much and absolutely no surprise. Mostly he just looked defeated, like he had been expecting it but knew he couldn’t do anything about it. And that was so much worse.

“Does it hurt?” she asked quietly.

He stared at her with wide, panicked eyes before whipping his hand behind his back. “What!?”

“Is it pins-and-needles tingly like your foot falling asleep?”

“I’ve… no idea what... you’re talking about,” he said in a strangled, highly erratic voice.

Oh, her little brother was such a pitiful liar. “Is it stiff? Is it cramped up? Does it feel too tight?... or too loose? Or sore or… Numb? C...c… Can you even feel it?” Jazz leaned in to touch his arm, and maybe see if she can test his sense of touch herself.

He scrambled away from her, making a loud racket as his chair hit the floor.

Yeah, she expected that reaction, but it did nothing to ease her worries.

“No, cuz there’s nothing to feel!” All that uncomfortable stress was seeking to find a new outlet, and _anger_ was usually the one her brother favored. “I... It just slipped out of my butterfingers, Jazz! There is nothing wrong with me!”

She certainly didn’t miss the way he said that. " _Nothing wrong with me."_ And it wasn’t the first time since The Accident that he had phrased it that way. As if something was making him feel like he _was_ the problem.

“Have you ever heard of… Progressive Muscular Atrophy?”

He groaned. “If I say yes, will you _Leave. Me. Alone?_ ”

“It’s a motor neuron...,” Jazz knew Danny would instantly reject anything with the title disease or disorder in it… She didn’t want him to add to his feelings that he was damaged or wrong... but this could be legitimately serious. PMA often starts in the distal muscles, like fingers and toes. “... _condition._ ”

Nope. Still not the right word. His face instantly twisted.

“For crying out loud, Jazz! I’m fine. It’s been a week since....” his breath hitched. “I...I. Am. _Fine._ ” he repeated more forcefully through clenched teeth. “If I wasn’t, the hospital wouldn’t have discharged me…”

She opened her mouth to refute that, but he cut her off.

“Now, I know you are just _dying_ to have something to pull out and _play psycho psychiatrist_ on. But I do not have a... condition! But oh, wouldn’t you just _love_ that?” he sneered, full of frustration and dark amusement. “If I had some freaky disease, then you could study it and use all the crap you learned, right?” He scowled. “You’re just like mom and dad,” he muttered with a bitter laugh full of pain and disappointment... and was that fear?

Jazz felt like he had just slapped her.

“Danny!” But by the time she had recovered her voice, he had vanished. He refused to talk to her, or even look at her, for the rest of the day.

* * *

> PMA is a motor neuron disease categorized by the gradual progression of nerves shutting down. It starts with the fine motor functions in the distal muscles: the hands and feet.

(In Danny’s case, it seemed to be primarily his fingers.)

> Symptoms include Flail Arm syndrome (where the arm muscles waste and become limp and cannot move voluntarily).

Not something Danny was struggling with. But also something that typically appeared at a later onset after the muscles had already had time to deteriorate… So perhaps it was only a matter of time.

> Fasciculation (or twitching or rippling effect seen under the skin), muscle cramps and pain, clumsiness, deteriorating reflexes.

She didn’t know about the cramping or pain—well... Apart from guessing, based on Danny’s expression, that it didn’t feel pleasant—but she had seen his clumsiness and lack of reflexes. Sure, he might not be the most athletic kid, but this clumsiness was beyond anything explainable.

> Breathing difficulties.

The doctors had worried about that. The halter monitor that he still had to wear was proof enough of that.

> Fatigue.

He did look more and more exhausted recently. As if he wasn’t sleeping well.

> Possible behavioral instability.

High negative emotions inter-spaced with periods of zoning out. That’s a definite yes.

> Weight loss and weakness and wasting of the muscles until the patient practically cannot move.

It hadn’t reached that bad... Yet. That three-letter word haunted her and meant that she had to do something before it did.

> PMA is believed to be caused by a mixture of genetics and environmental factors.

But it’s a neuron disease... and Danny just had who knows how many volts of electricity go through him. His brain definitely could’ve been affected. The electrical conduction in nerves that controlled movement absolutely could have been altered; resulting in something close to PMA, even if it wasn’t identical.

So… now what. The symptoms seemed to fit. But Jazz’s first attempt at breaching the topic crashed and burned magnificently.

This wasn’t working. _Nothing_ was.

.…

....

Hands shaking slightly, Jazz tore that page out of her journal. She knows that she will probably end up taping it back in later, but for right now... she couldn’t bear to see her own notes. She crumpled it up and threw it hard across her room, in frustration and… horrible seething guilt. It was like a wound forcibly reopened. A wound that nothing could heal. _Good_. In some ways, she’d rather it didn’t heal. And if it did, then she should make it hurt again.

Because this wasn’t over. Jasmine might not know much, despite being a so-called genius, but she knew that. Whatever was happening was so far from over, and that was the truth that tortured her day in and day out.

Because why should _she_ get to heal? Why should _she_ deserve to feel better, when her little brother didn’t have that option? Why is it that _their parents_ were able to recover? To the perpetrators of the act, everything was fine... but not to their victim. So she clutched her guilt to her chest, embraced it like it was her Bearbert Einstein Teddy.

She also didn’t want to think about how Danny would react if he saw her… research.

Was she truthfully using him the way he said? Is she treating him like a bug under a magnifying glass to poke and prod? Detailing its every reaction.

Was she only making it worse for Danny?

No. It’s for his own good… Right? I’m just trying to… help.

...

_“You’re just like mom and dad.”_

It was surprising how much his statement stung.

There was something deeper and _uglier_ hiding under that statement. It was something she couldn’t quite understand yet, but it still made her feel sick to her stomach. Maybe it was how he looked when he said it, like a hunted animal.

Jazz had always assumed she was better at... _this_... than her parents. Better at the emotions, better at caring, better at noticing. Better at _fixing_... After all, she didn’t think their parents had even realized half the stuff that Danny was still going through.

She remembered their mom going on and on about how she wanted to dissect and study the remains of the... ghosts that came from the portal, completely oblivious to Danny’s discomfort. At that moment it hadn’t mattered that ghosts weren’t real, no not to Danny as what little color he had left drained from his pallid face.

What about their dad, proudly brandishing each unstable gadget, and never even stopping to consider how much damage the last invention had caused.

Was that how Danny saw her too? Insensitive. Unable to help. To care. Only able to break things apart?

Their parents dissect the body.

But she… She dissects the _mind._

Was she honestly treating her own brother as an experiment?

“I’m not your psycho guinea-pig!”

The scientific method. _Observe._ Notes and notes of her observation lay in her lap. In her prized journals. The results of her spying and ignoring both her little brother’s wishes and his privacy. Detailing his every move in a cold, detached way. As if she was the narrator for a nature documentary. How uncaring her notes must read.

Research. How many of the books—sprawled out on her desk and bed, abused by sticky-notes and a ridiculous amount of bookmarks—had Jazz recently checked out because of Danny?

 _Hypothesize._ Find the right combinations of letters that could explain all this behavior. PTSD, PMA, AVPD, etc...

Which diagnoses fit? Which aberrant condition did he have? What was wrong with him?

“There’s nothing wrong with me!”

Oh, but there is. There’s something very, _very_ wrong with you. Something _wrong_ with your body, your brain, your behavior… but what? What is wrong with you?

And once she thinks she knows, then she can start to confirm her assumptions and...

And how do you go about testing a hypothesis?

You... _Experiment_...

Oh.

She was just like their parents, wasn’t she? The genius, who cannot understand the consequences of her actions. The blind workaholic, who ignores the pleas and wishes of her family. The scientist, who only cares about her theories; as she uses everyone around her as an excuse to test them. The Dr. Fenton, ironically titled as she never truly means to help or heal her patient. Just to poke and prod, dissect and dismantle, categorize and study. The stubborn, prideful little girl, who insists that she can never be wrong.

Well...

What else could she do? She had to help him somehow... And maybe the only way she knows how is through her impersonal, clinical books. It wasn’t her fault that these unfeeling anecdotes were all she had… She had raised herself on them. For as much as she prided herself on knowing all about how the human brain worked, she still couldn’t understand the more social aspects of how to _apply_ that knowledge.

Danny might _hate_ her for this. He would definitely hate it if he knew how much of her little “diary” that he teased her about detailed her... _“experimentation”_ on him.

But she can’t stop. Not until she knows what is wrong with her baby brother. Then maybe she can work on fixing it.

Because… he really was… Something really was _wrong_. Something… had… broken him. And pretending… wasn’t… wasn’t helping.

Jazz retrieved the crumpled up piece of paper. Brought it back to her desk. And then slowly, in sync with her breathing like a meditative practice, she smoothed it back out.

_Now... deep breath. In. Out._

_You cannot afford to fall apart. This isn’t ideal, but that doesn’t… can’t matter. Just do what you can with what you have._

Jazz grabbed the tape and carefully put the page back in. The slightly serrated edges and the wrinkles where the page wouldn’t lay flat were the only evidence of her doubt. Now, if only she could force her life back together so easily...

She turned to a clean journal page, and strengthened her resolve.

* * *

Teenagers judge each other on every little thing imaginable. And that judgment isn’t always able to shrug off, thanks to the confusing dichotomy between fitting in and going your own way.

Some people strayed too far to one side. Danny already struggled socially… again, the fault of their parents. Because who wanted to be friends with the freak from the freaky Fenton family? Jack and Maddie were lunatics, and no doubt they raised their children to be just as crazy. Jazz scoffed at that idea; that would require Jack and Maddie to actually raise their kids. Ok, that wasn't entirely fair… Her general opinion of her parents had taken a severe hit and it was overshadowing the good moments and happy memories. It wasn't that their parents _didn't_ raise them… It wasn't that they didn't _care_ about them… Or weren't there for them. It was just that, well… Sometimes, most times, their delusional theories and projects came first. 

Anyway, Danny already struggled in middle school, and now he had entered hard mode: high school. So… the snide judgments would only get worse.

One thing that is very high on that insurmountable list of never-ending criticisms: your appearance. So, it is not uncommon for adolescents to stress about how they look. What they wear, how they style their hair, and overall how they present themselves to their peers.

However, like every other thing she had observed about her brother, this was not typical teenaged behavior because of the _way_ he was doing it.

Danny would continually check himself in mirrors and any even slightly reflective surfaces. Honestly, it was getting to be a little ridiculous; he would use anything, no matter how strange.

She had caught him once or twice; he had forgotten to close the bathroom door. It should have been nearly impossible to sneak up on someone staring at a mirror but, he was too busy to notice her. Lurking just barely out of sight, she watched her brother do a weird, almost _ritualistic_ check over his face. He would run a hand through his hair over and over like he was developing another nervous tick. Mess his hair up so that his ears wouldn’t stick out as much. Lean in so close and stretch his eyes out as wide as they could go with his fingers, sometimes until they started watering. Open his mouth and run a thumb across his teeth. Hesitantly, ghost his trembling fingers over the face in the mirror, tracing the snaking, discolored area on his cheek. Then slowly repeat the action on his real face. After that, he’d sigh, shake his head and move on from his reflection.

There were also times when she saw him do a double-take as he passed by the window, the turned-off tv screen, the microwave door, etc. His eyes would quickly dart away. And then back up again with a look of pure terror, hysterically clutching his head or squeezing his eyes shut and then slowly reopening them. What he was expecting to see—or perhaps what he had seen out of the corner of his eye that freaked him out so much—she didn’t know. Maybe the scar? It was now barely noticeable and not really recognizable to people who didn’t know… but it was still there. It might always be there.

However, all of that assumed that stress and trauma weren’t causing some sort of hallucination or something. Of course, if Danny were struggling with that, he would certainly never, ever _tell_ her.

So she could do nothing to help...

But monitor and record it in her journal.

Jazz conveniently _“forgot”_ a small unassuming and gender-neutral colored compact mirror–that she had, strangely enough, bought very recently–in their shared bathroom. She smiled when she saw it missing the following day. Perhaps that would help in some small way–at any rate, it was better than using his fricken spoon.

Maybe she should do the same with some concealer… She’d have to guess at which shade to buy. Hmmm, Danny was most definitely paler than she was... Very, very pale… ever since The Accident... Which didn’t make much sense now that she thought about it. Jazz hadn’t heard of trauma affecting the melanin in the skin before… though she supposed it wasn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility. He was only hospitalized for a week... was that long enough to lose a tan?... Maybe even paler than the brand she bought carried.

Would concealer even help? Or would he reject it on the principle of it being make-up? And thus _girly_ or something? She absolutely knew some people at school who would tease him for something that inane and shallow.

She had considered clueing him in that the mirror was a gift, but he never really accepted any kind of help she handed out. So, as far as he knew, he had successfully “pillaged” one of her mirrors; Jazz went back to using her teal-ish pink compact. She hoped he would come and talk to her, but she could wait.

* * *

“Leave the kid alone.”

Jazz had been explaining her troubles to her friend. Spike had been one of the few people who actually put up with her behavior and general Fenton-weirdness. Sure, he wasn’t always eager to have some conversations—like his own problems that Jazz wanted to help him with—but he was still a good friend. Having nowhere else to turn to and no clue what to do, she had explained both her worries and observations about Danny to Spike. Spike’s advice was to let him be. “Seriously J, you’re gonna make it a bajillion times worse.”

“It’s not healthy to bottle it all up. He needs to work through this.”

“Yeah, he needs an ‘ _emotional cathartic breakthrough_ ,’” Spike gave her parroted words sarcastic quotation marks and rolled his eyes at her. “You keep forcing this and it’ll blow.”

Spike was probably right. She needed to calm down, give Danny air to breathe. Take it slow… But her Fenton upbringing guaranteed one thing, she had never learned moderation. It was full throttle or nothing. When a problem is in front of you, you tinker and mess with it until it’s fixed….

or until it blows up in your face.

 _The Fenton way_.

“I’m not forcing him. It’s more of a gentle nudge.”

Spike snorted, “yeah, _gently nudging_ him over the edge of a f*ckin cliff. You are faaar tooo pushy and all you’re gonna do is push him even further away.” Jazz wondered if Spike was speaking from experience, perhaps his own troubling relationship with his parents.

“I am worried about him.”

He said in a bored I don't care about anything attitude, that she knew he didn't really mean, “uh huh. But, you worry about everything _._ I don’t think you know how to _stop_ worrying.”

“He’s my little brother. It’s my job to worry,”

“Take a sick day. Or better yet, _quit_.”

“I can’t. You don’t understand how serious this is. This time it’s different.”

“Riiiight… According to you, he’s been acting weird, right?” He rolled his eyes and began listing things on his fingers, “jumpy, self-conscious, paranoid, stressed, clumsy, moody, angry, secretive, defensive, and tired...” Here the sixteen-year-old boy cynically wiggled all ten fingers. Then sighed and gave Jazz a look with raised, pierced eyebrows. “Jazz, have you ever f*ckin _met_ a teenager?”

Spike looked like the stereotypical delinquent teen, with a dyed and spiked mohawk, and a myriad of piercings and tattoos. He looked like he himself could fit most, if not all, of the adjectives he had just said.

Sure, she understood his point.

And most people would just write off these things as teenage angst that didn’t really mean anything. They would ignore these obvious red flags just because he was a teenager, and teenagers had a flair for dramatics and rebellion. As if that made everything a teen deals with superficial or unimportant.

Adolescence is a war.

And her little brother was deep in battle.

Was she really supposed to let him fight on his own? What if he really needs help?

Besides, Jazz knew that sometimes that teenage attitude that everyone liked to criticize was a good thing. A little rebellion, especially when you had a suffocating situation like Spike did, was healthy... to a degree. She had encouraged and supported it. How Spike chose to express himself wasn’t hurting him or anyone else. It was mostly cosmetic rebellion, anyway. He had a fashion sense that his parents disapproved of, but that had been an integral first step to forming his own identity and escaping the authoritative grip he was stuck in. Spike wasn’t the same person as his parents, and that was ok. Everyone had the right to be their own person.

As for the emotional struggles, that was what she encouraged him to actually change; starting with him finally having an authentic conversation with his parents instead of running from them.

But that was _Spike_.

What she was seeing in Danny _wasn’t_ the same.

“I’ve already cataloged typical adolescent behavior... This isn’t it.”

Spike whistled, “F*ck, J. Cataloged? Don't you sound all F*cking _professional_?”

“This is different,” She ignored his dig and continued to back up her claims. Whatever was happening with Danny was hurting him. It was something both physical and mental, and whatever it was… it was _not_ healthy.

“Ooooor, you’re overthinking things... _aaaagain_?” he grumbled in a low voice.

“No, you don’t understand the kinds of long-term effects that unprocessed trauma can cause.”

“Bold of you to assume you haven’t already told me aaall about them,” Spike said in a bored tone. Ok yes, she had used him as a sounding board for her ideas before... He was insightful when he allowed himself to be; he helped her as much as she helped him. After all, they were friends. Each other’s only real friend, to be honest. As they both had their own social issues and unfair stereotypes to compete with when trying to form close bonds.

Her not-entirely willing participant... Or patient and a begrudging study partner...

That was how many of their conversations evolved: Spike sat and listened half-disinterested and Jazz rambled on in typical Fenton fashion.

“You don’t understand,” she repeated. “He was in the hospital… he could... have… _died._ That’s unquestionably a traumatic experience.”

“Yeah…” Spike sighed and looked at her in a rare moment of sincerity. “But for you... or him?”

She couldn’t answer him.

“Look J, I get that you’re worried and freaked, even more than usual, which is saying something… but how do you know this isn’t all… in that big brain of yours. Like an inkblot test?” he asked, knocking on her head.

“What do you mean?”

“Your brain is... how you say... connecting the dots. Y’know, seeing things that aren’t necessarily there. Looking at the amorphous blobs and seeing images from your subconscious. Who’s to say your worries are even real?”

“I’m not…” she trailed off.

_Am I just projecting my worries onto him? Is everything really ok? Is it all just normal teenage angst? Am I just overthinking and overreacting?_

No, there was something there. Something wrong… right?

Every single little thing seemed to paint a horrifying picture.

But was she just being paranoid?

Psychology was a fallible field of study, like anything else. Diagnoses were tricky. How many times had the Rosenhan experiment been repeated? Where people faked their way into a mental institute but then were trapped there. After they had gotten in they acted normal, but the workers in the institution saw everything as a continuation of their condition. Confirmation baises warped every innocent behavior into a symptom that something was wrong.

Was that what she was doing to Danny?

She had recorded some minuscule harmless behaviors along with the worrying ones, and it was hard to tell which was which. For instance, lately, when she went to take a shower, a back full of ice water greeted her. At first, she thought that Danny had used all the hot water like he sometimes did. But no. Instead, the shower was set to absolutely freezing. She switched it back and had a nice looong shower before the hot water heater ran out. The following day, however, it would always be set back to freezing.

So, that must mean that Danny wasn’t taking hot showers anymore…

So innocent of a change. So mundane compared to everything else... But a change nevertheless.

Spike would absolutely say she was overthinking things if she sighted that as evidence of anything. But it was another way his routine had drastically changed. Didn’t it make sense that even the minor changes had a root cause?

Maybe she was overthinking things…

But...

“His behavior isn’t normal.”

Spike actually laughed harshly at that, “yo Fenton, what the f*ck is _normal_?”

Normal was entirely subjective. And if it truly was her confirmation biases making her think something is wrong… then normal behavior might as well not exist. It was an unachievable standard once the label of a diagnosis stuck. So easy to get into a mental hospital, and yet so hard to leave.

So how can she combat this? How can she objectively find out if there’s a problem?

If there’s a problem?

Of course, there’s a f*cking problem. She’d have to be blinder than her parents not to notice. Even if he didn’t really have depression, PTSD, or anything else. He was distressed. It, whatever it was, was still causing discomfort. So maybe she was overthinking some things… but her little brother was still in trouble.

She amended her statement, “this isn’t _healthy_...”

“He’s a teen. Depression and anxiety are part of that gig. You’re the weird one, so happy all the d*mn time, Little Miss Princess Pep.”

“So, what? I should just let him suffer? Let him deal with PTSD and depression.”

Spike shrugged, “Life is suffering. You should just let him live his life.”

“What the heck, Spencer? No, we absolutely should not _normalize_ and ignore mental disorders! Just because it has become commonplace for teenagers to experience these feelings, does not mean that they are at all healthy or positive! In fact, it tells us that the way we treat adolescents needs to change. We need to work through these emotions, not just ignore them or bottle them up! That will fix nothing! “

“Everyone’s f*ckin crazy somehow, Fenton... You don’t have to _fix_ everything. Sometimes, people don’t want your f*ckin help. Sometimes, there’s f*ckin nothing you can do to get stupid sh*tforbrains to listen! Sometimes, ya gotta just let the world be _f*cked_ cuz it sure as hell ain’t gonna change, no matter what you do.”

Well, if that wasn’t a disguised cry for help, she didn’t know what was.

“... You wanna talk about it?”

“I thought we were here, talking about your problems for a change,” he muttered.

She gave a little laugh. “We can talk about both… So, what’s up?”

“Same old sh*t. You?”

She laughed again, but tinged with more bitterness this time. “Yeah…”

They sat in silence for a bit. Until Jazz breathed out the truth. No more professional mask or Dr. Fenton psychologist who always had the answers. Just a lost sixteen-year-old trying to desperately _pretend_ she was an expert. “I just… _Don’t_ know what to do… I am not imagining it, Spence, something is wrong. Very wrong. I don’t know what... But… He’s scared and struggling. All I know is that he needs help. But… He... won’t open up. He won’t let me... _help_ him.”

Spike noticed the change in her demeanor and sighed. “Yeah? Well, maybe you should give him space. And wait for him to open up. Isn’t that something you always say? Breakthroughs take time… Anyway, I can tell you what _not_ to do... Stalking him, and writing about his every f*ckin move in your diary… that will _not_ help. That’s the weird part Jazz.”

“It’s not a diary,” Jazz wrinkled her nose, hating how childish that made her sound.

“Yeah, I know... It’s a textbook. A scientific journal. A research paper. A doctorate thesis. Whatever the hell it is, Jazz, it’s creepy... And not in a cool way. Any of your therapy books tell you what that kinda behavior is indicative of, cuz it sure doesn’t sound healthy to me.”

“Look, I know I can be a little obsessive.”

“Only a _little_?” Spike interrupted with an incredulous snort.

“but this isn’t about me,” she pushed on.

“Maybe it should be… C’mon J, before you drive your brother crazy...-er, with your theories and forced therapy sessions, you need an outlet. A… what would you call it? A… _‘recreational activity to aid with your own psycho-social adolescent development._ ’ I won’t even complain if you want to go somewhere besides the Skulk and Lurk.”

“The library?”

“ _Recreational_ activity, Fenton,” he deadpanned.

“Reading is recreational,” she argued.

“Yeah, but when’s the last time you read a book for fun?”

She opened her mouth

“And no, I don’t count your personal research projects… I mean like a _book,_ book. Not an academic journal or a textbook, and no, just because you’re not _taking_ the class doesn’t mean it’s not still a textbook.”

She closed it with a grudging glare.

“That’s what I thought. So worried about everyone else, you’re driving yourself nuts, J. Pretty soon you might be the one who needs f*ckin therapy.”

She humphed. Well, it wasn’t really like she could help worrying about everyone else.

“What about a movie?” he suggested.

“You know I don’t like your horror movies.”

“What are you talking about? You get even more invested than I do. Talking about the deeper real psychological fear each movie plays on.” Spike adopted a mockingly poor imitation of her voice, “like did you know that Zombies represent our fear of the collective and mob mentality that threatens individual thought? Or an alien invader plays on the fears of the otherness and times of outsiders invading our way of life. Or vampires represent the power gap and the cycle of abuse. Or how ghosts-“

“Stop! Ok, I see your point, you win,” she grumbled.

Spike gave her a smug smile. That would have seemed incongruent with his chosen outfit and displayed attitude had she not known better.

“Really though Jazz, I’m sure it’ll be fine…”

She wished she could be sure of that.

“Thanks, Spike.”

“No problem. Ya know, even the therapist needs some help every once in a while.”

“Yeah… but don’t think for a second that we are not talking more about your situation.”

“Ugh… Just can’t turn it off, can ya, Dr. J.”

___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: If anybody is reading this as a post or is waiting for the posts, sorry. This chapter took a while until I was happy with it. Then my computer broke... Then I got crazy busy with work. But now I have some vacation time for Lunar New Year so I have returned from the dead to post. I will try to be a bit more consistent in update times, but no promises. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.


	8. Getting to the Meat of the Issue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been nearly a month now since Danny had his Accident. Everything is slowly but surely returning to the status quo. Danny is back in school. Their parents are being... Themselves. They are barely behaving any different, but Jazz was undeterred. She would one day get them to finally see the error of their ways, and try her hardest to deal with the fallout that her family had yet to work through. After all, it was only a matter of time before her parents did something else they'd regret. But on the whole, things are moving forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally made it to episode one of cannon! The way I plan to take this: is for the most part following the basic premises and most of the events of canon episodes. Although, I am going to try and make it a bit more realistic and serious overall. This includes more natural-sounding dialogue and reasoning behind said events. Plus the whole point of this fic is Jazz and what she experiences, which means a lot of the ghost stuff will be happening in the background, and other in-between moments will have the focus. I am also working on making a coherent timeline cuz the actual show tends to jump around, so I might change episode orders around a little or have some episodes that get skipped or happen off-screen so to speak. I am not sure yet. 
> 
> Anyways, thank you so much to everyone who has read, commented, left a kudos, or bookmarked. I hope you like it.

The following Monday morning was as On Brand as it could get. 

Pieces of their parents’ latest gadget littered the breakfast table, as they tinkered with it instead of eating. Their mother was literally using a mini blowtorch. Maddie herself wore her jumpsuit hood and goggles, because safety first kids, but largely ignored the other members and their lack of protection, as sparks danced across the table. Small burn marks joined the numerous other imperfections in the wood that served as proof that this was an everyday occurrence.

Danny was doing his best to just eat his cereal and ignore their parents. He was having trouble; the clatter of the metal spoon on the metal bowl was of course drowned out by the blowtorch, milk splashed the table, and over Danny himself. He whipped his right hand under the table scary fast and tried to continue his meal with his left. As he continued to pretend nothing was wrong. Not that using his non-dominant was doing him any favors.

Jazz, meanwhile, buried herself deep in a book, _Surviving Adolescence through Therapy , _trying to drown out the madness. But as her eyes kept flicking up, she was failing to do so. 

“Ok,” Maddie shut off her blowtorch. “A couple more adjustments and it should be just about done.”

That caused their overzealous father to latch on to the last word as he snatched it out of Maddie’s hands and took off to parade it around. 

“It’s done!? The Fenton Finder is done! A repurposed Global Positioning Locator, but instead of roads, or anything boring like that, this baby uses satellites to lead you right to the ghosts! Ghost GPS GGPS!”

Danny’s head jerked up, eyes blown wide, like a frightened rabbit. “It uses what to track what?!” 

Before anyone else could protest, Jack turned on the device and began dramatically pointing it around the house, as if he actually thought there would be any ghosts in the house... Although all things considered, he probably did. 

A cold mechanical female voice started up, _“WELCOME TO THE FENTON FINDER, GHOST DETECTED, APPROXIMATELY 3 FEET AWAY. WALK FORWARD.”_

Jack excitedly followed, as the Fenton Finder began beeping like a metal detector occasionally repeating the command, “ _WALK FORWARD_.” 

Jazz watched it all play out, over the top of her book, like a twisted comedy routine: Danny had stood up and was backing away as his father pushed closer and the machine’s beeping was getting faster and faster. Finally, there was nowhere left to go; Danny had his back against the wall, trapped and cornered, his father’s intimidating height towering over him. 

“GHOST LOCATED. GHOST DIRECTLY AHEAD. YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION. THANK YOU FOR USING THE FENTON FINDER. _”_

“What? Well... that can’t... be right,” Jack said, puzzled, looking back and forth from the Finder to Danny.

“Um...uh, Actually I nn… need to tell you something,” Danny murmured.

Maddie had since joined Jack on his hunt; now both parents were studying their son—who was shaking like a leaf—up and down. 

Jazz forced her book shut with an audible _snap_. 

That was it. 

Her poor brother looked terrified, like he might faint any minute now. And her parents were hopelessly oblivious at best and further increasing his panic at worst. 

“You know what you need, Danny? You need guidance and parents who can provide it,” Jazz inserted herself in between her brother and that ridiculous device that was still occasionally spitting out “GHOST LOCATED. GHOST DIRECTLY AHEAD _”_ She shoved it away. She stole a glance back at Danny—who had taken advantage of her intervention by making himself as small as possible behind her back—with the corner of her eye. He looked so pitiful, it strangled her heart and kindled her anger. She turned away and leveled her glare at her parents, ready to go off on yet another _what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-you’re-making-Danny-relive-a-traumatic-experience_! rant... And yes, sadly the word _another_ was needed.

Her mom gave Jazz a condescendingly placating look. “Now, Sweetie, I know what we do… Doesn’t always make sense sometimes, but you’re only-“

“Sixteen,” Jazz cut her off with identical pursed lips and stubborn pride. “ _Biologically_. But Psychologically I am an _adult_ ,” or at the very least the closest thing to one. How dare her mom suggest she was too young to know what’s best when Jazz has been the _only_ one acting like a mature, logical adult in this house... for years. Who was the one who noticed when there was a problem? Who remembered the important little details? Who actually took care of things that needed to be done? 

...it always fell to Jazz.

“And I will not allow your insane obsession with ghosts to do this... To interfere with an impressionable child’s development. To pollute the mind. To be the catalyst for neglectful behaviors. To foster resentment and...and...and,” in her fury, she was ready to spit fire—and say something she would regret. “To do even more damage... Hasn’t it already done enough?”

That shut her mother up. Maddie’s sweet smile curdled like old milk. The mood in the kitchen became suddenly cold and dismal. A strangely familiar chill swept through. Her father’s enthusiasm popped like a balloon. 

All eyes flicked to Danny, the scar of slightly discolored skin spread out like a tree branch barely visible going from his neck up his to cheek, who looked like he would rather be anywhere but here. 

Jazz also wasn’t helping. She was only making him feel worse, giving the impression that he was… Damaged. Contaminated. Broken. Fragile. Unwanted. She sighed. “Come on Danny, I will drive you to school,” Their parents looked surprised but whether it was by her outburst or the fact that they hadn’t noticed her driving Danny to school and thought it was new she didn’t know. One last glare at their parents, one last bite of her tongue, and she was out the door. Danny followed behind, looking like he had just dodged a bullet. 

* * *

The ride was awkward. Jazz kept checking the mirror to discreetly… or not-so-discreetly watch her little brother… He was still so jumpy. 

“Danny… Are you-“

“I’m fine, Jazz,” he cut her off before she could even get the question out. 

Right... Of course you are.

“... I’m sorry.” Her hands were turning white by how hard she was gripping the steering wheel. He didn’t respond, just stared ahead blankly; either zoning out or only pretending to ignore her, she didn’t know. So she gave a more complete apology, “I shouldn’t have said that... what… I did in the kitchen… that was… insensitive.”

He shrugged, “tch… ’sfine. Got me out of there, didn’t it?”

Silence stretched on.

The tension was suffocatingly thick and uneasy. The world had frozen; it was like the red light, in front of her, was affecting more than her car. Her little brother sat perfectly still… like a statue, his face as hard and unresponsive as cold stone. Jazz, herself, felt constricted. Her thoughts sluggish, her breathing uncomfortably manual as she began overthinking even that process. Every slight movement forcibly slowed, horribly aware of every awkward second that passed by like years. It was making her want to _do something_ , just to get time working normally again. She wanted to turn the radio on to block out this oppressive silence. Or try to break the silence herself. But her lips felt glued together. She couldn’t force out words… or the building frustrated scream. Her arms felt stiff, outstretched on the steering wheel, and impossible to move. If only she could turn off the AC or even turn on the heater… _When did it even get so cold?_ Part of her was screaming that she should just gun the engine, consequences be damned, and just get to school—running the red light and driving like her maniac father. Just to do something... anything. 

“Jazz?” Danny’s voice sounded strange as it penetrated the impossible silence; the first sound so loud after what must’ve been years of silence. It made her jump a little. “If... I uh.. told you… something… that sounded um uh… a bit crazy, like... Mom and Dad levels of _nuts_ … would you… believe me?”

She slowly opened her mouth, feeling the dry skin of her lips peeling apart, her voice soft to not fully disturb the silence. “What do you mean?” 

“What if… just… uh _hypothetically…_ What If… somehow… Mom and Dad were...” He was shaking again. He stopped, licked his lips, swallowed with some effort, and then began again, quieter this time. “What if Mom and Dad were… _Right_?”

Oh. No need for more clarification than that. That was a question that had plagued both of their childhoods. It was a volatile topic, especially when it was wrapped up in all that personal pain. It also came packaged with other questions unvoiced but heard nonetheless... _How could their parents believe something so ridiculous? How could they continuously choose fiction over reality? How could they prioritize these delusions over their own children?_

She had to answer it delicately. 

“Danny,...” She stretched out his name, she was using her therapy voice. The same cadence and tone as talking someone down from a ledge, of talking sense to absurdity, of trying to soothe a panic attack.

Danny recognized the tone, and immediately backtracked, “Never mind… It was… A stupid idea, anyway.” He gave her a wavering smile that still looked like he was gonna be sick, “Everyone knows _gh... osts_ aren’t real.” She didn’t know if the way his voice jumped up an octave on the word " _ghosts"_ was because of emotion or puberty… Or both. 

“Danny,” Jazz tried again, but it was no use; he had clammed up. She had failed his test and now he won’t tell her anything.

She glanced at him again out of the corner of her eye. He looked downright awful; she had half a mind to forgo school completely and drive him right back to the hospital and demand to see the _idiot_ who had discharged him. His face was pallid and drained of color, his breathing was shallow, and his eyes were shining like he might be about to cry, and they looked almost… wait?

green?

...

What the...?

Oh, it was just the light. 

Oh. The red light had finally changed to green; yes, of course, that made way more sense. She shook her head free from the image the trick lighting put in her mind. The honk of the annoyed driver behind her told her she had already spent too long staring at the green and had better get a move on. 

If their conversation at the light took too long, the rest of the car ride passed by too quickly. 

Danny never said another word, no matter what she tried. 

Before she knew it, they pulled into the school parking lot. “Good luck, little brother, and... have a good day.”

He scoffed. Muttered something she couldn’t catch under his breath. Then he left. 

* * *

The school cafeteria was having a vegan and vegetarian week, courtesy of Sam Manson. The young activist had been pushing for a healthier option and insisting that the school lunches needed to take dietary restrictions, either out of medical need or personal preference, into consideration when designing the weekly menu. In general, a good idea. Jazz had even signed Sam’s petition and had convinced some teachers to do the same. This week, while possibly not what the at-times-radical girl wanted, was a step in the right direction. 

Unfortunately, not everyone held that perspective. Many students seemed to take offense, either at the lunch options themselves or at the girl responsible, and soon the freshmen class, in particular, began an enormous commotion. Apparently going as far as to enact a food fight. Which was certainly one way to kill all talk of Menu Reform.

Jazz herself rarely ate in the cafeteria, instead, she grabbed her lunch–not the most appetizing looking thing but with her family she had had worse… much worse… at least this food wasn’t glowing strange colors and wouldn’t move of its own volition–and set up in the spare classroom a little ways away. Here she was allowed to study or have an open door for any students who needed some extra assistance. No one joined her this time. It was just her and her schoolbooks. Not even Spike came… Oh, based on previous evidence that probably meant that the weekend had not gone well for him… She would probably find him sulking near the bleachers. She should go check. Especially since he might try and skip class again, which is something he should not do. Mental health days aside, but that would involve him staying home with the cause of the strife. 

The school walls were pretty paper-thin, so she heard the absolute chaos that was happening in the lunchroom a couple of doors down. She just hoped that Danny wasn’t involved… which later would prove to be a naïve hope. 

She heard Mr. Lancer shouting names and a couple, in particular, caught her attention: Fenton and Foley. Danny and his friend. 

* * *

After school Jazz went home without Danny because he had to stay late for detention and he said that he’d rather walk home anyway, and that she shouldn’t have to wait for him and that it was his own stupid fault for getting in trouble and just Go! Home! Already, Jazz!

Evidently, he was still mad at her for this morning. 

When she walked into the house, the lights were off. “Mom? Dad? Hello?... Did you guys knock out the power?” she sighed, and said the last word under her breath, “... Again.” 

Suddenly everything was happening too quickly. There was smoke… And some strange goop... And yelling. And the whirring sound of a vacuum cleaner.

“Got ya now, you ghost scum!“ she heard her dad’s highly distinct voice yell out. And a massive silhouette nearly tackled her. “Maddie, watch my back! I got the Fenton Xtractor. This will knock that dirty ghost out!”

Jazz tumbled out of the way, in a manner that suggested that she had had experience with being jumped like this. Or at least had been prepared for it. Ironic that instead of using those skills against ghosts, as her parents no doubt intended, she used them against her parents, themselves. She had just managed to make her way to a light switch, hoping that the power still worked, and the lights were a part of the apparent ambush on the other side of the living room. 

Light flooded the room, revealing Jazz with her mother wrapped around her legs and her father holding a weird tricked out vacuum cleaner to her face. 

“What the heck is wrong with you two!” She yelled, working to disengage herself from this absurdity. 

Her parents seemed momentarily shocked and let her go with a look of quiet shame at their mistake. But she knew it was not likely to last. They never really let go of an idea, once it got into their heads. And it seemed that for some insane reason they thought she was possessed.

... Again. 

So it was that time: for her to endure countless weird prototypes and de-possession rituals. Until something convinced her parents that the ghost, which was absolutely not inhabiting her body because it didn’t exist, had moved on. Knowing what was coming, she made a beeline for her room. So angry she could barely think straight, she slammed the door and collapsed on her desk chair with her head in her hands. So much for what she said this morning, making them rethink anything.

They better not do that to Danny when he gets home. 

Well… If there was a sliver of silver lining to this messed up situation, if mom and dad thought Jazz was the one harboring a ghost then maybe just maybe they would focus on her and not do anything that would traumatize Danny more… And while she didn’t appreciate a “modified” vacuum being shoved in her face any more than the next person, she also wasn’t the one who had been sent to the hospital because of their inventions. 

Downstairs they were probably regrouping, maybe designing a different machine… Which means that she has until it’s finished to worry about it. She sighed and began her schoolwork, making a mental note to order a pizza soon. It wasn’t likely that her parents were going to remember food tonight, and if they did, it would probably have some weird chemical that forces ghosts out or something cooked with it. 

Besides, she doubted Danny had had much of a lunch, anyway.

* * *

Day two of Vegetarian and Vegan Week was even worse. The food fight had trashed the cafeteria, and tensions were high between students. The backroom kitchen where the lunch ladies worked looked like a bomb went off. Even Danny and his best friends were fighting. Which certainly was further info on the origin of the food fight.

But all of that wasn’t what was worrying Jazz. No, at this particular moment that honor belonged entirely to Spike; as she guessed he had another big blow up with his parents and she was doing her best to help. 

“Can we not today, Jazz?” he said wearily. He was sitting on a secluded picnic table, slouched over yet still glaring at Jazz.

“Spike, you can’t keep doing this, it isn’t healthy,”

He gave a derisive snort, full of frustration and pain. “And oh what is... Having a whole ‘nother f*cking fight. All that will result in is them putting their foot down and then up their own a$$! They won’t listen to me!”

“Well, that’s partly because you haven’t fostered that relationship yet. It takes time… and trust goes both ways. You have to open yourself up to your parents. Be true to yourself and them.”

“Yeah, thanks for the book slogans Dr. Fenton, but Jazz, that ain’t gonna work in real f*cking life,”

“Have you tried it?”

“Uh-huh,” Spike was glaring at her in a way that simultaneously communicated being annoyed and tired of this conversation. He had often told her that he didn’t want help with this… That in his colorful words: his sh*t is his f*cked up sh*t that she can’t f*cking fix so why try. Then of course he’d roll his eyes and sigh and admit that he knew she was gonna try anyway because she’s Jazz and that’s what she does. And only occasionally did he mean that in a derogatory way.

“Really tried it? Told them honestly how you feel? They’re your parents, they’re not gonna attack you or anything,” 

Jazz was cut off by a glowing green net, falling on her and then wrapping around. 

“I got it!” her dad’s booming voice roared in victory. Then he began reeling in the net, Jazz tried her best to move with the mechanism to avoid having her feet knocked out from under her… But in the end, she lost her footing and was completely caught. “and the Fenton Grappler works like a charm!” he said happily. 

“Excellent, now we just need to keep her in there until that ghost phases through the net and frees Jazz,” her mother said. 

Jazz was fighting with the net, now with the added disadvantage of being knocked to the ground. “There is no ghost! I am not a ghost! And I’m not possessed either!”

“The more accurate term for that phenomenon is overshadowed,” her mother chimed in. “And you would know that if you were my daughter.”

“Oh, for crying out loud! I am your daughter!” Jazz fiddled to get her car keys out of her pocket, to cut the net. Normally, she might feel a little bad about ruining one of her parents’ inventions, but it was hard to think that way while caught in a net like a freakin fish. 

...Besides, if she’d only started breaking inventions earlier, she could’ve avoided... A lot.

She began to saw through the slender net with the serrated edge, hoping that they were too busy making it ghost proof they forgot to reinforce it against normal cutting tools. She was in luck! Snap! went the green Fenton rope. She threw the offending net off and carefully righted herself again. 

“This has to stop! You’ve ambushed me, suffocated me with smoke, trapped me in a net, and worst of all pulled me away when I was having a very important conversation. It might have even finally led to a breakthrough. What do you have to say for yourselves!?”

“If you’re not a ghost, how come the Fenton Finder directed us right here to the school? And it went off in the house. What about the Fenton Xtractor and the Fenton Grappler They both worked. Why if you’re not a ghost? oooor this ha! Got ya now! Eat hot Fenton Thermos Ghost Gal!” Jack overdramatically pulled out a soup container and directed it at Jazz. 

Jazz braced herself against more of that disgusting green goo or projectile soup or... anything really.

Nothing happened.

“Jack, I’m starting to think maybe… Jazz... isn’t overshadowed,” Maddie said, losing confidence. 

“But she’s been acting weird!” Jack defended childishly. Then he looked at her, staring right into his daughter, and yet still somehow missing everything. His gaze became sadly pensive and his booming voice softened. “She’s been so upset, recently. Acting harsher, and angrier. Out of character violent outbursts. Not my happy little Jazzerincess… Plus, she’s trying to sabotage and stop us from completing our inventions! Of course, a ghost wouldn’t want us to make more weapons.”

“I’m upset and angry? That’s why you think I’m a ghost?!” Suddenly Jazz thought back to what she told Spike. She had to be honest and open with her parents. That was the only way breakthroughs happened. _Time to take your own advice, Dr. Fenton._

She sighed, and faced her parents."Yes, I am upset and angry. Of course, I am! I am… So," Jazz’s voice shook with controlled rage and that energy was rampaging through her entire body. “ _So_ _angry_.”

But regardless of everything else, her father was actually right about one thing: this anger wasn’t normal. It wasn’t healthy. It might be slightly out of character… but it was all she could think of… And of course, her parents thought it could be as stupidly simple as sucking up her anger in a special vacuum cleaner with the name Fenton on it and then blissfully carrying on with life... Because that was how her parents dealt with anything. She took a rattling breath and forced herself to calm down, be mature and understanding. Shouting and fighting didn’t solve the deeper problem. Calm down. _Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to ten. 1. 2. 3._ “I’m… l...” No, don't say that... Instead, emphasise that this is just a _temporary_ feeling, and not a state of being… “ _Feel_ angry… because of what _you…_ “ and yet again that vile resentment surfaced again at what they had done… _No, keep calm 4. 5. 6_. It wasn’t really their fault… no, it was… But… at least maybe they couldn’t help it. That was something psychology had also taught her: be _patient_ with people they are dealing with things you might not understand. If this ghost obsession was actually a break from reality, then… she needed to be gentle with the people behind the delusion... “ _your obsession with ghosts_ is doing to this family! I...thought with the...portal…” _7\. 8. 9. 10. Stay calm_. “You would have finally seen that what you’re doing isn’t... healthy. You’re not protecting us from ghosts, you’re… the ones… _hurting us_.”

“The portal?.... but, ... Danno is fine, he’s all better… right?” Jack asked, growing less confident that those words were accurate.

Jazz couldn’t help but stare at her parents as her jaw dropped. She knew they were easily distracted and missed some details… But… _How_ had they not noticed?

“Yeah, he’s still having a rough time, bein’ a teen can be hard…” her father amended. Why did everyone just assume that it was general adolescence that was giving Danny a hard time and not… the literal traumatic incident he was lucky to have even survived? “but... He’s a Fenton, and a tough kid. He will bounce back,” Jack was always good at inspiring passion and confidence… He was the one who told his kids to dream big, reach for the stars, and never let anything stand in your way; something Danny happily took literally. 

_Never let anyone tell you that anything is impossible. Why they all told me what I wanted was impossible and look at me now. You’re a Fenton and that means that nothing is impossible. Don’t ever let yourself be a victim or defeated. Fentons aren’t quitters, stand your ground and when someone tries to knock you down, get back up._

... But her father still saw the world in such a simple way. His advice wasn’t always realistic; sometimes just saying get back up or you can do it... Just wasn’t enough. Sometimes people, especially children, needed a hand to help them back up. Sometimes they needed more than that "good ol'e college football, rub some dirt in it and keep playing," mentality. 

“Yeah, maybe he will… But only if you stop making him freaking _relive_ it over and over!”

“Oh,” Jack said in a small voice, sliding his gaze to the broken net and then the thermos in his hand. More Inventions he used against his children.

“I really thought after what happened... You two would finally get your act together! Ghosts aren’t real, but you wanna know what is real… What has always been real? _Your own freaking children_!”

“I really have messed everything up, haven’t I.” The way he said it, not even a question but a statement, made Jazz feel awful…. But breakthroughs are painful and… They need to wake up before they do something they will regret. Well… something else.

“Not just you, Jack,“ Maddie stepped in to comfort her husband. 

“Jazzy is right, Mads. We… Are just making everything worse… From this point forward... I, Jack Fenton...” he met his daughter’s eyes. Showing her proof that he really, really _did_ care more about his children than ghosts… Even if he didn’t always act like it. “Turn my back on ghosts.”

A grand declaration was par for the course for her over the top father... And he didn’t always follow through with all of them, and he rarely took them seriously. But soon all confidence and determination fled from him. He heaved a heavy, almost heartbreakingly defeated, sigh and looked down at the thermos in his hand. “Ghosts aren’t real. And this Thermos doesn’t work… It can’t trap ghosts... Because they... _Aren’t_ real,” he threw it away as if he couldn’t stand looking at it. 

It was just like when the portal first failed. Jazz remembered what she told Danny: that was… _This is._.. A _good_ thing. Change is painful. Acceptance takes a while. However, they cannot remain the same forever. To grow and change and learn is to be human.

Ironically, how Jack and Maddie were acting, running along controlled by an obsession and a delusional world view where they never had to accept change and never noticed that they were breaking things and hurting people in the process, was how they often described ghosts. 

Jazz thought back to her conclusion long ago, ghosts _were real_ , in a way... But they _weren’t_ green glowing dead people or crazy monsters with impossible abilities… Instead, it was just the unhealthy mindset of a static refusal to accept change… Or the hyper-focusing on an obsession and forgetting to live… _That_ was certainly very real. Her parents were onto something; seeing the shadows of the human psyche and demonizing it. Putting on a monster show, dressing real mental issues up in a bedsheet, and claiming that they could childishly shoot the monsters away. 

Time to wake up. 

Time to move on. 

Time to grow up.

She had finally gotten through to them, when it happened... Something else quite impossible.

For a split second–indeed, she later wondered if she really saw anything at all–something appeared. It was something that she couldn't give a name to... Blurry and hard to make out, moving so fast, impossibly bright, and the sun pierced through it, making it even harder to look straight at it. It was about the size of a child and looked vaguely humanoid. It fell from the sky and dove into the ground. Then it was gone, as if nothing had happened. An echoing wind whistling noise that could almost be arranged into words was the last thing to fade away. 

That didn’t just happen… Did it?

“Jack, that was...” Maddie’s awed voice broke the silence. 

“A _ghost_! A real live–well no not live… dead… a real dead ghost! Mads, we were right!” Jack picked up her train of thought.

No… This can’t be happening. Jazz had just gotten them to focus… To really focus and take a long introspective look at their actions…

Only for a...

A...

...What even was that? Jazz’s logical brain refused the notion of ghost, obviously, that was impossible.

A weird trick of the light.

A mirage...

Caused by what, though? 

A… What could that have been? A shared delusion? Was she going just as mad as her parents? Delusions weren’t contagious but... There were genetic disorders...

No, no, the senses can easily be tricked; the brain is a powerful thing and the power of suggestion can explain a lot more than people realize. 

By the time she had regained her own senses, Jazz had lost her parents… again. They had taken off running. She trailed behind them. 

She came upon her parents talking to Danny, probably asking if he saw the ghost. “Uh… Sorry, Dad, you um… Just missed him,” Danny replied, gesturing behind him. 

“We got a runner!” their father yelled and then they were both gone, and had left their children behind. Again.

“You didn’t actually see… A..anything... did you?” Jazz asked Danny.

“Um...uh… Nnno??... Why did _you_?” he asked, nervously shifting his feet. 

“I… don’t... know,” Jazz admitted softly. She gazed in the direction that Jack and Maddie had barreled towards, “and... I had almost gotten through to them… ugh! I guess we are back to square one.”

* * *

That night she recorded her attempt in her journal. She had gotten sooo close. So close, by being open and honest. She smiled slightly at that, and Spike said her solutions don’t work in _real life_ … That was the closest she’d ever gotten… And if nothing else it _did_ help her work through her own anger. She hadn’t forgiven her parents yet… They had made too many mistakes, screwed up her brother and her own lives too much for that… But it was a start. At least, now she could be in the same room as them without biting their heads off. As proven by dinner. Dinner with just the three of them, because Danny’s food fight drama had caught up with him and he and his friends had to help clean up the school. He had looked so exhausted when he came home, but well… Those were the consequences for his own actions... She just hoped it wasn’t _too_ strenuous of an activity, he was still recovering after all. 

Today was a start. Danny was back in school, and apparently well enough to get into trouble. Her parents had a dose of reality today, and she would have to make sure she kept giving them more. But more than anything today proved that things could get better. 

And maybe they didn’t always have to get worse before that happened...

But… still, she couldn’t help but wonder, as she closed her eyes and tried to turn off her brain so she could sleep… A chill ran up her spine... What was that.... Thing… That she... Thought she might have seen?

Did she actually see it? 


	9. Closed off due to Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The school was closed off for repairs. The damage done by a... Well... Something because there was no way highschool students did all that as a result of a food fight... But what else could it have been? Anyways school was closed until Monday, which is good because Danny had come down with something... Probably sore from helping clean up in detention. Or something... Although, it was also very unfortunate that school was closed because their parents seemed determined to "help" and this time there was no escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is a little shorter than usual. But I felt like I needed a kind of aftermath of episode one, before just going ahead with the next episode. I wanted to address a couple of things like Danny's obvious ecto-contamination and a reasonable reaction to Danny triggering every invention. Jazz would assume the inventions don't work, but Jack and Maddie are going to try and get involved somehow. Plus I need to show that while she won't ever convince them that they are wrong about ghosts, Jazz's fallout with her parents has some consequences and has changed their approach... Just certainly not in the way either Jazz or Danny would like. Plus Danny just had his first big fight and his body isn't exactly adjusted enough to not overwork himself yet... Not that anyone realizes that. So all of those reasons made it so I couldn't just move on to the next episode. 
> 
> Although I am not super happy with how it turned out, but I have also touched it up so much that I am second guessing even posting it... Constructive criticism is always welcome. 
> 
> Hope you guys like it, we will pick back up with ep two next time.

“Good Morning sweetie, you’re up early.”

“Um...” Jazz checked the clock reading 6:30 am. “No, I’m not.” Then figuring that her mother might’ve gotten the days mixed up added, “it’s a Wednesday.”

“Oh. I forgot to tell you. The principal called and said that they shut the school for the rest of the week due to cleanup and repairs.”

“That ghost did a number on the school grounds,” her father grumbled, joining the conversation. “If only we’d gotten there earlier, and we coulda stopped it.”

Jazz chose not to mention the fact that they were too busy trying to stop the ghost they convinced themselves had been “overshadowing” _her_. She also refrained from wasting her time telling them it wasn’t a ghost—because they _aren’t_ real—that wrecked the school. It was just some misguided highschool students… one group of which included Danny and his friends. But of course, it couldn’t be all their fault... no way could three teens cause so much damage that the school shut down for repairs… 

Instead, she just continued to make herself some breakfast and didn’t dignify a response. She opened the fridge and pulled out the milk. 

_Oh no._ It smelled unsettlingly... _off_ and was no longer only white. It must’ve been right next to… Whatever was in the slightly glowing Tupperware in the back. “What is this?!” She asked in exasperation. “I thought we agreed. No samples in the fridge.” Not that agreement was ever followed… but still.

“Oh, that. It’s just…” her mother paused, like what she had to say was hard to get out. “Well… Your father and I have realized that you... are right, Jazz...”

Jazz’s jaw dropped, and she stared dumbstruck. It was like her foot missed a step on the stairs. “Wait. Wh… what?” 

"We’ve been so focused on The Portal that… We _neglected_ the detrimental effect it might’ve had on our own children.”

 _No way_... Had yesterday actually succeeded? Her hopes soared higher than was sensible. She knew she should be more skeptical… but she couldn’t help it, as the storm clouds she’d been living under her whole life seemed to finally, finally roll away.

“We… are so terribly sorry, sweetie…” her mother said, and this time she sounded genuine. A gloved hand rested on Jazz’s shoulder and while the pressure was comforting, it still made her think back to the last time she actually felt her mother’s soft touch instead of the rubbery latex material. “and we... promise we are working to fix this. Make it up to you and… Your brother.”

This was… Was this happening? Was she dreaming? Had she at last done it, finally got them to listen to her? To take her seriously? To be the parents, she knew they could be, the parents she sometimes got glimpses of… The loving people who would do anything for their children. If only they let go of all this ghost nonsense. This was…

“The Portal is up and running” the next words out of her mother’s mouth were a quick stab to that ill-advised hope. And yet Maddie appeared once again oblivious to what was happening. Back to talking about her stupid invention and sinking Jazz’s heart deeper and deeper with every clueless syllable. “We need to be extra mindful of how that ecto-radiation might impact our home.” 

_Ecto-radiation_?!? Another absurd scapegoat for their actions. Another apology that meant nothing, because it was too disconnected from reality. Oh. Of course. Anything else was… too good to be true, she cynically finished her thought.

"Your brother… already suffered a heavy dose of ecto-poisoning that we’ve been… neglecting and hoping it would work itself out on its own... And the other day… We just assumed you were overshadowed, instead of also affected by the excess etcoenergy the portal gave off… And we are so sorry for that” she repeated the right apology for the wrong reasons. And that almost hurt worse than no apology at all.

“We are going to fix this. Starting with developing a way to prevent ghostly possession and limit the intake of contamination, based on natural herbs, as well as some trace samples of ectoranium.” She finished with a proud smile.

“So what is it exactly?” Jazz asked in a dead voice, now remembering the strange container that she pulled out of the fridge, not sure if she even wanted the answer. 

“An Anti-ecto Protein Shake!” Her mother replied, beaming.

Right. Of course, it was.

“I am _not_ drinking that.” 

Her mother’s smile stretched thin and became forced, “Jasmine, sweetie…”

They were trying. Jazz could tell… but… 

She had half a mind to dump it down the sink… Or maybe even flush it down the toilet. Instead, she ignored both it and the woman who made it and turned back to the fridge to search for something _edible_.

If the milk was already turning, then the eggs that had been in a similar location, probably couldn’t be trusted either. So she had to settle for a pb&j sandwich, not the best breakfast, but it required nothing from the biohazard that was the Fenton Fridge. 

Her mother sighed and let her be, seeing that nothing was going to get Jazz to further engage.

Soon her parents had moved on to discuss the problem with their latest invention. Jazz let the words float around her, half tuning them out. But… half listening for something else she’d need to brace herself for. One of their toys wasn’t working… apparently 

Her mother poked and prodded the opened back of the strange little machine. “I don’t understand, It was working fine at the kids’ school just yesterday.” 

“Maybe it’s outta juice and needs a recharge?” Jack suggested. 

“No, it’s nothing like that. Remember, we decided against typical batteries for that very reason. Don’t wanna be without it when we need it most. Hmmm… besides, it turns on and responds, it’s just the signal that is... _off_.”

“Maybe something is interfering with the signal, so we can’t get a good read on...”

“Oh, of course!” Maddie clapped a hand to her forehead and exclaimed, “The Portal!” 

“Oh! That explains why it was reacting to Danny too!” Jack shouted, overjoyed that they solved the mystery. “The excess ecto-energy from The Portal must be scrambling the system.”

“Right. Oh...” her mother’s expression dropped like a stone. “Speaking of... We still need to make sure…” she swallowed and put her head in her hands. “he is in the clear. Ecto-radiation poisoning can... do terrible things.”

“Mads…" Jack began rubbing his wife's shoulders trying to comfort her. "We won’t let that happen, he will be ok,” 

“We’ve waited so long already… we should’ve insisted…”

“We had to… we thought it was best to wait and give him some time to adjust…”

“We need to make sure... there are no lasting effects.”

“Are you two _serious_?” demanded a voice, and both parents seemed surprised to see their daughter there. 

“Jazz, I know you just want what’s best for your brother and so do we… We mean it… We know we messed up… But we can fix it.”

“ _Fix it?!_ What by forcing him into the lab and running your ridiculous tests?!”

“Ecto-radiation and ecto-contamination can be extremely harmful”

“You know what else can be _extremely harmful_? Forcing him back to the place of the _Traumatic Incident_. Haven’t you even noticed how _terrified_ of the lab he is? ”

“What? Danno scared of the lab?” Her father asked as if the very idea of one of his kids not liking the lab was ridiculous. “But he goes down there just fine.” 

“Oh my god, how _blind_ are you? Since _The Accident_? He _used_ to. But since he’s been home, has he gone down there to ask you something? Or even popped his head down from the kitchen to call you guys up? Hell, when was the last time he left the kitchen without circling back around the table, instead of cutting across the door to the lab like normal? You seriously haven’t realized that he’s been avoiding it like the plague?”

“Jazz, I appreciate you looking out for your brother. I understand that you’re worried about him, we are too. But this is something beyond you. You don’t understand what is at stake here! How dangerous Ectoplasmic poisoning is!” Her mother tried her best to simultaneously get across the severity of her claim and the confidence that they could fix it. 

“Well then, maybe you should’ve thought of that before you made that stupid portal, to begin with!”

Maddie looked like Jazz had just _slapped_ her.

Ok, so maybe Jazz’s anger wasn’t as dealt with as she thought… or claimed. But these things take time… Besides, as much as her parents professed they were trying to make things better, they only made everything worse.

* * *

Just then Danny came down the stairs. Well, " _came"_ was a generous way to put it; he scrambled and staggered down the stairs, looking like death warmed over. He was gripping the banister so hard that his knuckles were white and it looked like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Indeed, it must’ve been because he lost his grip and tumbled down the last couple of stairs. He hit the bottom hard, groaning and laying at the foot of the stairs. 

“Danny!” Jazz rushed to help him up, forgetting all about her parents and appearing by his side in seconds. It surprised her how easily she could lift him; he was so _light_ … Was he eating normally? She’d have to keep a closer eye on him during meal times.

Danny weakly pushed her away, “Gerroff! I’m fine.” He then demonstrated how _fine_ he was and how he _didn’t_ need her help by getting up on his own… and immediately falling again, clutching his head and moaning. 

“Did you hit your head? You could have a concussion!” Jazz fussed around him, trying to discover what was wrong… and more importantly, how to help. 

“Quit it,” he tried to swat her away.

Their parents had now come over to see what was going on. “Sweetie, are you ok?” their mother asked, the worry tight on her face. 

“yeah, fiii..ne... jus… head… hur…s,” he finally seemed to grudgingly accept Jazz’s help to get up—he swayed uneasily and grabbed onto her arm for support—which meant something was really wrong.

“Are you sick, Danno?” their father asked.

“Nmm..” he said, shaking his head, and then immediately thinking better of it. He went back to clutching his head as if worried it might split in two. “can’t...mss..mre..school.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, sweetie. Your school is closed until Monday for cleanup and repair.”

“Oh.”

"Maybe you should lie down.” suggested Jazz, watching him sway uneasily. 

He glanced at the stairs and gave a bark of disbelieving laughter, “nuh… gunnappen.”

“what about the couch?”

Danny seemed a bit steadier on his feet and let go of Jazz’s arm and walked, in reality, stumbled and swayed like a drunk person, over to the couch and collapsed. Jazz had stayed right behind him, spotting him like he was walking a tightrope. 

“I’ll go get the Fenton Home All Malady Cure Kit!” Jack roared, preparing to become a 6ft tall and 300lb mother hen.

“Wait, no! Immafheelinfine! I don.. nee...” his slurred words trailed off in an equally jumbled curse. It was too late.

While their parents had rushed to get the kit, Jazz pulled out her phone. “Danny, look over here, I need to check for a concussion.”

Hmm. His eyes were not malpositioned. That’s good.

“What day is it?” she asked him.

“Huh? What?" He looked confused, then he refocused his attention on her, "uhh, Wensday?” So even if his words were still slurred, he at least could answer.

"Follow my finger,” she moved her index finger, but instead of following it, Danny just rolled his eyes at her. Jazz gave him her stop-being-so-stubborn-and-immature look, which he ignored.

Fine. Ok. She turned on her phone’s flashlight feature and slowly shined it near his eyes.

"Wha tha hell, Jazz!” His pupils constricted like crazy, so small they nearly disappeared, and… it almost looked like for a second that his eyes reflected the light like a cat’s… But that’s insane… Must have been a really weird trick of the light. Before she could examine them, he slammed his eyes shut, put his hands over them, and scooted farther away from her light. “I already feelike Imma gun puke! I don wanna be blind too!”

So, that’s a _yes_ on increased light sensitivity.

“You feel nauseous? And you said your head hurts, right?”

“Yeah, it does. So stopshshshouting,” he moaned.

“Shouting?”

“Yallre so damnloud.”

Hmm. Increased sensitivity to sounds and lights. Dizziness. Nausea. Slurred speech. 

But wait… he was dizzy before he fell... So the fall couldn’t be the cause, right? “Danny, did you feel dizzy and nauseous before you fell down the stairs?”

“No, I washperfectlyealthy and made the deshision to flingmyselfdown the shtairs. It’s the fastest way down y’know.”

“Ok. If you’re cognizant enough to be a smart alec, you don’t have a concussion.” 

“Izzthattafact?” 

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I’mdyin,” he said, cracking up like he just told a hilarious joke. “Thinkmy bones have beemmmmicrowaved.” 

Hmm… she would’ve hoped that he could take this more seriously. She could hardly get an idea of what was wrong if he doesn’t tell her anything… “Anything else? More specific?”

“Evythin’ hurts… m’sore all over.” That was the exact opposite of more specific...

"From working late last night? How long did Mr. Lancer make you and your friends clean up?" She asked, while she disproved of his actions and understood that he needed to accept the punishment, it wasn't long enough to make him feel this badly, right? Mr. Lancer wouldn't have made the penalty way worse than the crime, right? He was tough... But not an unreasonable taskmaster.

"Too long," Danny complained, which honestly could've meant anything.

Well, headache, that was at least easy to treat. She ran to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.

“Here, to help with your head.” Jazz handed Danny the water.

“Thnks.” He took a sip and then grimaced, “it tasyes weird.”

“It’s water.”

“Didjya geddit from the FentonFilter?”

“Of course not. Who knows what they are unintentionally putting in our water supply to make it ‘ecto-purified' It’s bottled.”

“Wazit in the ffffridge?”

“Mom and Dad put another sample in the fridge. No.”

“Esc…” he murmured, looking down the mouth of the bottle, “plains why it’s warm… Couldya... get me some ice?”

‘Ice? From our freezer? Samples there too… Not much better than the fridge.”

“It tayses weird waaaarm” he whined.

“Well, would you rather have room temperature or contaminated water? ”

“Apparn’ly... I’m a’ready highly contamminaed... Couple ice cubes won’ kill me.” he laughed again, a hysterical dizzy laugh that didn’t seem to fit with anything he was saying. Or maybe Jazz just didn’t get the joke. 

“No, but it might make Mom and Dad force you into the detox box.”

Danny stopped still as a statue, as if something big and terrible was after him and he was afraid to move. “no… they… can’t...” he whispered.

Jazz sighed, taking the water from his hand, and went to go put some ice in it. “You’re lucky that I’m putting up with you being a brat, because you’re not feeling well.” 

Maybe it was a good thing she did because he downed the iced water like someone dying of thirst. She went to refill it several times.

Their parents came back shortly, bringing with them the Fenton Cure Kit. Any sickness or injury always saw this kit and their parents’ unique brand of medicine. Jazz just had to make sure that they didn’t do anything like drag him down to the lab… or actually force him into the decontamination chamber. 

“Ok, sweetie, open up,” Maddie said, pulling out the Fenton Thermometer. Danny eyed it suspiciously as if worried it might blow up in his face, but in the end he did what he was told.

A couple minutes later Maddie was looking at it, frowning. “hmm well you don’t have a fever.”

“I don’t?” Danny asked, voice croaking with surprise.

“No, in fact, your temperature is… perfectly normal. 98 degrees.”

That didn’t seem to comfort Danny, if anything he seemed more nervous and worried. “Oh... Hype… uh hypoth… thethically what would it mean if I... _did_ … uh havum a fever?”

“Anything really, fevers are the body’s way of fighting off intruders, either viruses, bacteria, or ghostly possession.” Jack said, “it’s why our thermometer also measures the ectoplasm in your system.”

Danny nearly choked as he tried to take another drink. “ _O… oh_ ” he hacked and coughed out.

“How’s his ectolevels Mads?”

“Hmmm. Lower... than I would’ve expected. Looks like your body is indeed flushing the ectoplasm out... That’s good. Although, that probably doesn’t feel…” she gave the weak, sickly boy a glance over before finishing, “pleasant.”

Danny reacted to that before Jazz could even open her mouth, trying and failing to get up, thoroughly terrified. “Wait! What...doyamean my body is _flushing out_ ectoplasm?!”

“Danny, do you know how much ectoplasm The Portal contains? It shocked you… there’s no way that did not contaminate you...”

Danny looked down, almost ashamed, and stared at his hands. “oh.”

“Really, we should’ve put you through a decontamination process immediately but...” Maddie bit her lip trailing off.

“So… uhh... Now what?”

“Well, sweetie... It looks like you are very, very lucky. Your body is fighting off the contamination on its own.”

“Izzat why I feel so... crappy?”

Maddie looked at him with pity, “Probably. What specifically do you feel like?”

Danny gave a sigh that was more of a groan, but he answered. “My head hurts. I’m sore all over. I’m exh..austed and weak. And dizzy... I feel like imma puke. I’m hot… like really, really hot… it’s so hot...”

“It sounds like you might just be dehydrated or suffering from a particularly bad fever,” Jazz put in bringing Danny yet another glass of ice water. “Where’s your Holter monitor, did you remember to put it on today?”

“Thnks,” he murmured, taking it from her. This time he didn’t drink the water, he specifically dug out the ice cubes and popped them in his mouth. “And I uh… frg..ot?”

“Danny!” He flinched and covered his ears with his hands, dropping the glass on the couch and spilling the water all over himself. “You cannot do that! Until you get the ok from Dr. Mortan, you know that you have to wear it!”

“I know…” he grumbled, “but it was… unc...omf...terble”

It was early morning, so he would’ve had to have forgotten to put it on last night… or yesterday. Jazz tried to remember if she asked him about it yesterday or if she saw him with it on. She couldn’t remember; she had been preoccupied with other things. 

“Danny, you have to take this seriously!” 

“I know! I jusht frgot yesterday!”

And yet he had a history of taking it off when he wasn’t supposed to… so much so that his week-long test had to be re-administered. He knew that if he continues to do things that mess up the results, he might have to stay at the hospital again to ensure he wears it for the full monitoring period. He had his next appointment on Friday after school. It was Wednesday. He had three more days until it was over. Why would he jeopardize the test so close to the end?

“Did you _faint_? Is that why you fell down the stairs?”

“No... My head hurt, I felt dizzy... and my stupid foot fell throu… uh um Immean missed a step.”

“Keep drinking water and get some rest... and you should be fine,” Jazz said, looking at her parents as if to say please don’t go overboard and make this worse than it is. “And maybe you should see if you can move your appointment up, after all, there’s no school. Where’s your monitor? I’ll go get it.”

“Uh… in my room. On my desk next to my computer.”

Ah. Breaking another rule then. He knew he had to keep it a good deal away from other electronics so that nothing interferes with the signal. Jazz almost had to wonder if he was trying to skew the test data on purpose.

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” Maddie said. “I will call Dr. Mortan. And… Danny, in order to make sure that the contamination really is going down. We also need to do some tests.”

“W what?!” Danny looked terrified. “Why? What kind of tests?!”

“Standard tests… blood test. Maybe even a urine sample.”

“You _cannot_ be serious,” Jazz said. At the same time as Danny said, “What? No! That’s disgusting!”

“It may be disgusting, but it’s also an important part of making sure your body is flushing out the toxic ectoplasmic waste,” their mother replied completely unphased.

“And… um uh blood samples?” Danny asked, voice trembling.

“Need to check your blood to ectoplasm levels, make sure it’s at a relatively safe range between 1-5 parts per hundred.” Their father said, “Your mother and I spend every day in the lab so we have our levels closer to 5-10 parts per hundred. But we decontaminate regularly and wear the Fentondex hazmat protective suits. I’m expecting your levels will be on the higher side, maybe even cross the next threshold to moderately contaminated 10-20 parts per hundred.”

“What happens if it.. is that high… or even… Um uh, higher?”

“It depends. If your mother’s theory about you fighting it off is accurate, it might be lower. If it’s as high as moderate, then we will need to look into ways to help your body fight it either through the Fenton Detox Box,” Danny flinched. “or something else. Maybe we can make a porta-detox something or you know good ole fashioned ghost repelling herbs and spices. There are many options. Don’t worry kiddo we can fix this, ok?”

“What if it’s like… really, really _high..._ like… uh hypoth...etically… like closer to I dunno… maybe… like 50-60 or… something like that?”

“Don’t be silly, Danno, we’d know by now. If your contamination is that high you’d be crossing the line of extreme contamination… which would’ve probably… killed you… So, either you’d have to be overshadowed or maybe even a ghost yourself,” their dad said with a laugh. 

Danny gave a halfhearted chuckle as if trying to convince his dad that they were on the same page, “heh… heh, ye…ah…”

“Jack!” Maddie reprimanded. “Don’t worry so much sweetie, it’s just some standard tests… ok?”

“Do I _hafto?"_ Danny whined.

“It’s for the best, sweetie…”

“He is _sick_! Can’t you at least wait until he is feeling better!?” Jazz argued, seeing that this time her parents were actually going to go through with this _insanity_. 

“ _No_!” Their mother’s voice was stern and stubborn… and scared, like she was telling her kids not to touch a hot stove. “We have waited long enough. I know you two do not believe us. But right now, I do not care. This is too important. Daniel, come. Now… Or so help me… I will ground you for a month! You too, Jasmine.”

* * *

So they spent the Wednesday in the Fenton lab. Danny had it worse than Jazz, who only had to go through about half of the tests… to make sure she wasn’t overshadowed and check on her contamination levels. Then of course the decontamination process; she always hated the Fenton Detox Box, but had endured it. 

Danny had his blood taken, he’d nearly had a panic attack when his mother did that… but eventually he calmed enough for them to get their sample. Then some other tests like blood pressure… it was low—below 90/60 but it matched his baseline that the hospital had discharged him with... and other typical doctor’s checkup type tests.

Even the grosser examinations took place, regardless of how embarrassing and undignified they may have been. 

Then the more Fenton style Tests… Their parents were nothing but _thorough_ when it came to their projects...

Various strange gadgets scanning Danny over. It went about as well, as expected… The Fenton equivalent to a Geiger counter, but for “ecto-radiation”, still had some “bugs to work out” and had nearly shorted out while they were scanning Danny... And it wasn’t the only invention that “wasn’t ready for use” and should certainly not be anywhere close to her brother. After the fifth time something nearly short-circuited or blew up in Danny’s face… or straight-up tried to attack him, they seemed to finally get the hint. 

Jazz was at least successful at sparing her brother from the detox box, though. Absolutely no way were they going to force someone who was actually having a serious panic attack into a small claustrophobic metal box hooked up to a kooky machine that “drew the ectoplasm from the body like wringing out a sponge”. 

No. Nope. _Not_ happening. Over Jazz’s dead body. Ground her all you want. Sure, shove her in that uncomfortable box… At least she didn’t have highly unstable breathing, heart problems, a chance of fainting and blacking out, or an intense PTSD reaction, and a well-earned fear of their inventions… “You already did your stupid tests... Now leave Danny alone!” 

There was one thing that she hadn’t expected but was nevertheless thankful for: apparently, this insanity _did_ take Danny’s mind off of his fever and headache. In fact, after the nightmare was over, he looked almost… better than before. 

Danny sat on the couch, drowning out the horrors they just went through with a cheesy movie. But some color had returned to his, still pale, face. He no longer complained about his head or felt dizzy. He was drinking lots of water and chewing on some ice cubes. He seemed like, against all odds and their parents’ best efforts, he was going to be alright.

Until he actually threw up, because of some weird herb Mom had cooked dinner with… that she hadn’t bothered checking if he was _allergic_ to.

If yesterday had proved that eventually, Jazz could get through to her parents… And was a ringing endorsement for optimism. Then today was the other shoe dropping. Today was proof of the continuous harm their parents’ madness caused. Today was pessimism spitting back in her face. 

* * *

Jazz crept downstairs to the kitchen, to eavesdrop on the other things their parents were planning…

“Well, Jazz is clear at least. But that’s not unexpected, she hardly ever comes down here…” her mother said with a sigh.

“But Danny?”

“I don’t understand. The tests seem... _inconclusive_. It doesn't make sense... His blood is thin… ectoplasm would make it thicker, not thinner... and strange. Like it’s diseased… or _incomplete_... but not overly contaminated. 10/100… higher than it should be certainly... but lower than makes sense given the reactions of the Fenton Finder, the Fenton EctoRadiation Detector… and the fact that The Portal...”

“Maybe he really is fighting it. Fenton genes kicking ectoplasmic poisoning to the curb!”

“It’s not that simple. Jack, it doesn’t add up… he _should_ be showing signs of ecto-acne but he’s not…”

“Perhaps something protected him… Jazzy had nearly the same levels as us, just from exposure to different things. So what if all that gradual little exposure throughout their lives, created something like an immunity… or at the very least a tolerance.”

“Oh… oh, that could explain why Danny’s body was able to recognize the foreign substance enough to fight it off internally, rather than try to excrete it through the skin and clogging up the oil glands, thus creating ecto-acne. And the overall weakness he’s been feeling, as well as the abnormalities we found in his digestive tract… like someone with a high tolerance for poison. I see. Then… oh, the blood blossoms and etcoranium probably had a bit of an adverse effect on him because it tried to break down his built in tolerance. In fact, it might be better to continue the gradual exposure, instead of eliminating it, so he can build the tolerance up… Hmmm. Changes the way we need to deal with this. The best thing would be to get him to wear a Fentondex suit, but... that won’t happen,” she sighed.

“This is brand new… Mads, we need to be careful... We can't override his tolerance.”

“You’re right. For now, we should just monitor him. Make sure his body doesn’t overwork itself. Either purge the ecto too completely, thus developing an autoimmunity… or adapt too much and create an addiction to it. It’s such a delicate balance.”

Jazz had heard enough; she left her parents, still muttering away and building contingency plans for made-up illnesses. However, at least they seemed to rethink what they were doing to Danny. Jazz headed back to bed but found herself stopping at Danny’s door.

She knocked, softly.

“Who is it?!” Asked a jumpy voice, on guard for the worst.

“It’s me. I just wanted to check up on you… How are you feeling?”

She could’ve said the words with him if she wanted to, so familiar was his answer, “I’m fine, Jazz.”

She could repeat the question. He would only repeat his answer. 

She could accept his answer, turn and walk away. But that would only leave a festering doubt that he wasn’t telling the truth. 

She could barge into his room, see for herself how not fine he is, overstep her boundaries and force the help he will never admit he desperately needs. Her hand slid down to the handle. It wouldn’t turn. He’d locked his room this time.

She withdrew her hand but still didn’t leave. She felt like if she waited long enough, if she just gave him enough time, he would open up… She gave him so much silence, but he never wanted to fill it.

She didn’t know if it was ten minutes or ten hours later when he spoke again, “I know you’re still there… Seriously, just go to bed, Jazz.”

She sighed and leaned her head on his closed off and locked tight door. “I’m so... _worried_ about you…” she breathed, talking more to the door. She doubted he even heard her. “Good night, little brother,” she said louder.

“Yeah, I know… but I’m fine,” he muttered, answering her. “Night, Jazz.”

Today had only strengthened her resolve: she would reach her parents and force them out of this mindset, or die trying.


	10. Dancing with Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casper High's Back to School Dance was causing quite the stir. Although Jazz didn't really put much stock in the social hierarchy, in fact, she thought it was pointless and cruel. She hardly worried about extracurricular activities like school dances, classes were much more important... She didn't care for the gossip or the rumors... usually, she didn't but... Well, the name Fenton flying around the school was almost never a good sign.
> 
> AKA Episode two from Jazz's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Episode two! Thanks again to anyone who has read, gave a kudos, bookmarked, and/or left a comment. It really means a lot! I am so glad that you guys are enjoying my delve into the mind of Jasmine Fenton. Constructive criticism is always welcomed, especially since I have no beta and sometimes miss small mistakes while editing. I don't know the culture on AO3 but I might go back and make fix minor errors that I see in this or previous chapters, cuz they drive me crazy sometimes... I don't know if that will alert anyone who happens to have this story bookmarked or not, I hope it doesn't cuz I know I would be kinda annoyed if I thought the author was updating but it was really just minor editing.
> 
> Anyway, Lunar New Year vacation is drawing to a close so I do not know if I will have as much time to write, but I will try not to take another multiple month hiatus again. Haha. Thanks again.

Nearly a month, that was a sizable test period to begin to know if things were going to get better on their own. Enough time to know when something is serious. It had been just over a month since Danny’s Accident… but that wasn’t an entirely fair assessment; if she was waiting for a full recovery, then it would be more accurate to go by the period of three weeks since the hospital discharged Danny. The three weeks of attempted normalcy, the three weeks of adjusting—or readjusting—to school. And even then, it hadn’t been a full three weeks, because of… outside circumstances. But things were improving slowly—so gosh darn slow that Jazz had to repeatedly remind herself that they were really improving—but surely. 

  
One such piece of evidence that things were indeed improving happened at the end of the week. Danny had returned from his second doctor’s appointment since release in relatively high spirits. Jazz noticed his Holter Monitor was missing, which was probably the source of his mood change because he hated that thing.

  
“So… how did your appointment go?” Jazz chanced asking Danny during a Sunday night dinner… and one of those rare family dinners occasions where everyone was accounted for and the food wasn’t too mutated.

  
He shrugged, picking at the meal disinterested, “same as last time. They don’t know. Dr. Mortan spent a good long hour and multiple paragraphs of medical mumbo-jumbo just to say he has no fricken clue what is going on with me. But hey, at least he realized it’s pointless to have me hooked up to that stupid monitor any longer.”

  
“Really, just like that? Has your condition at least improved?”

  
“Nnnnope. _Stagnated_ was the word he used,” he said, waving it off like it wasn’t important.

  
“Oh. That’s... not good.”

  
“Figures you’d think that too,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “At least it’s not getting any worse.” 

  
“It’s also not getting any better,” Jazz tried to stay as calm as she could.

  
He scoffed, “like I needed a _professional_ to tell me that.” 

  
“So what now then?” This time she turned to her parents, hoping that for once the adults were going to take charge.

  
“Well… one option is a pacemaker-” Their mother began.

  
“--I am _not!_ “ Danny interrupted, crossing his arms and sulking deeper in his chair. “Putting up with another stupid, uncomfortable device that doesn’t even fix anything! Especially not one they want to _surgically implant_ in my fricken heart. Not happening. I am fine. I don’t need that.”

  
Jazz opened her mouth to further debate, but he beat her to it, “It’s my stupid heart! I should get a say! And I say I’m _not_ doing it!” 

  
This was not the ideal time for her little brother to choose to be especially stubborn and overly… _difficult_. 

  
“Then maybe we could come up with an alternative for you!” Their father offered, well-intentioned but so woefully tone-deaf. “What do ya say, Mads? We got a good look at Danny’s Monitor and I bet we can design one that’s not as uncomfortable… Ooh, we can even use it to stabilize the ecto-contamination! Ha! two birds with one stone!” 

“Absolutely not.” Jazz shot down at the same time as Danny blanched and shouted, “ _No!”_ He looked down embarrassed at how loud that came out and a bit ashamed at how hurt their father looked. He cleared his throat and tried again, “Nn-n-no that’s um ok… uh no offense Dad… but your guys’… stuff still kinda has a habit of…” attacking him, hurting him, making everything worse. “Uh um… Ek-sp-plo-d-ding? So…” he trailed off. “B-b-but thanks for the offer,” he said with a forced and sickly smile.

  
“Of course, Danno… it was just a suggestion,” the man said, more subdued than normal. “I don’t wanna do anything... that would hurt you…” Danny flinched ever so slightly.

  
“The other option is medication…” Maddie turned the topic back to the details of the doctor’s appointment.

  
“And have to deal with all those messed up side effects? No thanks. I like his third option: do nothing. Dr. Mortan said that some people don’t even need treatment for… whatever the heck he called it.”

  
“Bradycardia, sweetie. And that’s not what he said. He said some people don’t have very bad symptoms or face any complications to warrant extreme treatment,” their mother corrected.

  
“Yeah, that. Me. I’m fine: no symptoms, no complications, no treatment needed.”

  
Really? That’s what he was going with? No symptoms or complications? What did he call all the obvious things he was still struggling with? If he was going to lie, he should at least put some effort into being believable. 

  
“Danny, just the other day you were seriously ill,” Jazz reminded him, trying not to sound too overbearing but also slightly freaking out that he absolutely refused to take this seriously.

  
“Yeah… But I’m not now!”

“That doesn’t mean the problem has just magically vanished!” Jazz burst out in frustration and desperation.

  
Unless it wasn’t a lie… Maybe he was still in denial… That wasn’t good at all. Short-term denial to process a distressing situation subconsciously instead of overwhelming yourself was healthy and beneficial. But Danny living in denial for a month was certainly not…

  
“We… will take it slow…” their mother cut in, driven by a similar desperate worry… but also cautious not to escalate the situation. “Ok? Danny? Keep an eye on your condition and meet with Dr. Mortan for a couple more sessions… but we don’t have to decide on a treatment... just yet.” Their mother was feeding into Danny’s denial… and from the look on her face, she knew that… but she was also right: everything was still too delicate to mess with.

  
Danny looked startled and for a moment almost suspicious… But then his expression softened in relief, “Thanks, Mom.”

  
Maddie’s smile answered in kind, as her worry relaxed, “no problem, sweetie. Now I can handle the dishes tonight, you should probably get to bed. You have school in the morning.” She went to kiss him on the top of his head, and this time he didn’t respond by pulling away… So that was something.

  
“Yeah,” he sighed, running a shaking hand through his hair, which then morphed into a groan, “don’t remind me.”

* * *

The school had done a commendable job cleaning up the grounds, cafeteria, kitchen, and various other places that vandals had targeted. 

  
They had done a less thorough job trying to shut down the talk and the rumors about the so-called ‘Meat Incident’ from last week. Some stories going around we’re simply ludicrous… although, Jazz supposed, not as ridiculous as her parents’ “ghost” theory… Besides, what actually happened was also quite _improbable…_ if less exciting. The food fight had caused so much damage and sent multiple people into hysteria, causing several cases of visual and auditory hallucinations because of a gas leak. That explained whatever she had seen that day. A simple case of Carbon Monoxide poisoning… wow, that was extremely dangerous... no wonder they had to shut the school down. It turned out that during the chaos someone, either accidentally or purposefully it wasn’t confirmed, ruptured a gas pipe. How highschool students had managed to do that, no one knew. At least Danny wasn’t being blamed... as far as she knew.

  
However, it seemed the official story seemed too boring for the average high school student, so away went the tall tales of what they had seen in their hallucinations… at least the people spreading these stories did not seem to believe them. Just a bit of senseless fun.

  
But really... whoever had done that weird edit of “The Massive Meat Monster” that they posted online had some talent, despite choosing to waste it on foolish jokes. Also, someone should screen the articles published in the School Paper, The Casper Hi-lights, better because apparently a few of the members of the journalist club were cryptic chasers or conspiracy theorists or… too into sh*t posting. Which resulted in these articles: The Government Uses Gas Leaks as an Excuse to Cover Up the Truth.

The Twisted Truth of the Mystery Behind Mystery Meat

The Conspiracy Behind State School Lunch Funding and how the Elites Want Us Unhealthy

As well as satirical writing pieces. One about the reanimated corpses of cows coming to take revenge on the top of the food chain that was, all things considered, quite good. The author had even included the provided irony and a fair bit of commentary on what had started this mess to begin with, Vegan and Vegetarian Week. Jazz heard that they even submitted it for extra credit in Mr. Lancer’s Creative Writing class.

Not counting the school newspaper, there were also just plain old rumors without much of a platform… but that didn’t make them any less popular.

Some rumors painted Sam Manson as the vandal who caused the gas leak as revenge for ruining her menu plan. Some mockingly said that she 'used her voodoo gothic witchcraft to place a curse on the meat so that everyone would have no choice but to go vegan'. Or 'a curse that those who ate meat would receive karmic punishment for their crimes and become the meal for the animals they slaughtered'. 

Still, other stories casted everyone’s favorite urban folkloric characters—Amity Park’s very own Mad Scientists, The Town Lunatics, and Jazz’s own parents—as the culprits. The worst part was that like the best-exaggerated fisherman tales it held some truth to it: her parents _did_ like to involve food with their crazy inventions, they were _at the school_ when the incident occurred, and they _were_ trying to convince anyone who would listen that a ‘ghost possessing meat’ orchestrated the whole thing after the fact… add that to the fact that their _son_ was the one, that according to eyewitnesses, had started the food fight, to begin with… and… the plot for a parody B movie style horror story practically wrote itself. 

Frankenstein rip-off, where the mad scientists reanimated a lump of meat... That in turn reanimating the old 'Fentonstein' nickname. 

Or claiming that the 'Freaky Fentons incited the massive gas leak to get everyone to believe them through hallucinations and the power of suggestion.'

Unfortunately people were quite adept at spreading horrible, tasteless rumors based on _charactertures_ about her family. It was nothing new; they had done the same thing when Danny first had his accident. At least, those gruesome speculations grew stale before Danny had to come back… _mostly_.

Jazz supposed it was just more childish pranks… More cruel bullying and laughing at anything that strayed from the norm... Or perhaps a result of living in a quiet little town where everyone knew everybody, there weren’t too many secret things, and in general not much happened. That was certainly the reason her parents made the _local news_ far more times than was strictly necessary… 

Anyway, the rumors would die down… Jokes would grow old… They always did.

And this time sooner rather than later because Casper High’s Back to School Dance was rapidly approaching; Gossip about who was dating who would always take precedence over gag urban legends about “Mystery Meat Golems’’...

Even if mocking the “Freaky Fentons’’ never seemed to truly go out of style

Jazz doubted anyone would be discussing anything other than the dance after Tuesday at the latest. The mood of the school had already changed. As always, High School Dances meant high school hormones: a veritable petri dish for psychological evaluation with an overwhelming sense of excitement, anxiety, fear of rejection, jealousy, puppy dog love, and infatuation all boiling over. The school was ready to burst. 

Teachers did what they could to get their classes to focus, but they weren’t often successful. 

* * *

Jazz was right about the dance overshadowing all other topics in the school. As the dance grew nearer… talk spread at record speed. Now, Jazz was not a very social person. She put little stock in the social hierarchy of Casper high, the gossip of who was with who, or the extra-curricular events like school dances. 

However, despite normally blending into the background most of the time… the rumor wheel had taken an interest in Danny. 

Not for the first time, Danny had caught the attention of the school. But this time based on who he was taking to the dance: An A-lister, an up incoming royalty of Casper High’s elite. The young Underclassman Queen and School Princess Paulina Sanches. 

Jazz wanted no part in the ridiculous and downright medieval class-based division the school glorified. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of it. 

Everyone knew the rankings. Split by grade, interest, and finally wealth and family status. At the tippy-top of the food chain were the S rankers, the Upper-Class Royalty, the Seniors and juniors involved in all the ‘right’ sports and fashion trends, and whose parents were extremely well off. Directly below them sat the A-listers, the Underclass Royalty, the Freshman and Sophomore next in line for the throne. The only difference between the S and the A-list was age.

Leaving the coveted Royal line you found the B-listers, the ‘less important’ sports players, the ones with ‘cool’ interests, who followed all the ‘right’ trends and yet, gatekeeped by other factors such as wealth, never had the power to set them. 

Below them were the commoners, The C-listers, the average students, not important enough to stand out or to be worth degrading. 

From here the hierarchy sorted people by (insults towards) interests: The band geeks, the goth freaks, the science nerds, the theatre freaks, the debate club, the math nerds, etc... Jazz couldn’t keep up with them all. Or the exact oh so nuanced way they considered one interest ‘cooler’ than others. Ex) if you played an instrument, and it was the tuba then you’re a band geek loser, but something more conventional like the guitar and you are a wannabe rocker and could be high as B list. Sometimes the complications revealed that of real-life hierarchies and lines of succession, although memorizing Casper Highs Social Succession wouldn’t help you pass your history class. Or do anything really, other than more effectively pick on people. 

Below all the various cliques created out of interest there were the lower tiers for the ‘losers’ and then the lowest of low tiers… The F-list for those ‘freaks’ that didn’t follow the rules, who had no grouping feature except their unwantabilty by any other group: The undesirables, Invisibles, and untouchables of Casper High. 

Psychologically speaking, these cliques forced a mob mentality hive mind If de-individualization if you were one of the pack and dehumanized as well as ostracised those considered ‘others’. It was a disgusting microcosm that bred feelings of superiority and inferiority and a whole other host of tendencies that might fester into full-on mental disorders in the future. Metaphorically speaking, it transformed the school into a ruthless jungle or compartmentalized and tiered off hell, worse than even Dante had imagined because here bad behavior was incentivized. And this Oppressive Social System was at peak power when events such as dances occurred, so as expected this week… it was bad. Not that it was exactly pleasant any other time, but still. 

Jazz never really cared which rank they put her in. Her last name ensured that she wouldn’t ever reach as high as a C; being a ‘Freaky Fenton’ had downgraded her quite a bit… But she didn’t care... that much—because she was still a teenaged girl herself and well aware of the social programming that these cliques prayed on. 

She guessed she was sorted into one of the many ‘loser nerd’ categories, because apparently only ‘loser nerds’ wanted to succeed, and put forth their best effort in every class… it was a ‘lame’ thing to get good grades, spend all your free time at the library… take extra classes for fun, help out academically whenever you could, be involved in academic competitions, be sorta friends with some of the teachers... Yeah ok, so maybe she was a nerd. But she never understood why everyone used that label as a derogatory thing. 

Jazz didn’t know where the all-powerful irrefutable highschool hierarchy decreed her brother should be… based on his last name probably pretty low, based on his friend group even lower, and based on everything else… Well, people—especially high school teens—were not predisposed to kindness. 

So when A-list darling Paulina agreed to go to the dance with an F-lister, Freak Fenton, the school gossip train had exploded. Rumors flew and as expected they weren’t at all pleasant. Honestly, at this point, the School Newspaper was more like the School Tabloid. The gossip spread so far that even people neither interested nor connected knew, which is how the news eventually reached Jazz.

Ah. So in the midst of all of the other medical and school problems, her little brother was also dealing with his first crush… and the Draconian psychological warfare that these cliques taught.

Oh. That could re-contextualiz some of his behaviors… but certainly not all.

* * *

The door to the spare classroom opened during her lunch period, “Ah, Jasmine, I had hoped to find you here.”

“Oh, Mr. Lancer!” The slightly overweight, balding middle-aged vice-principal startled Jazz out of her work, “Um… hello, do you need anything?”

“Honestly? Yes. Jasmine, I know you are the volunteer student tutor,” his smile fell. The man sighed, “and there is a student whom I think would benefit from your guidance… but, I also fear the arrangement wouldn’t have the desired effect.”

“What do you mean? Which student?”

“Well… your brother,”

“Oh.” Her voice fell lower as the implications sank in. She almost had the insane desire to laugh or maybe scream. But no, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t fall apart, not when everyone around her seemed to be doing that already. Here was another incident where someone else, another _adult_ , had to come to _her_ , “ _oh_.”

“Now… I don’t want to place either of you in a difficult position…” Mr lancer began.

_Too late._

She cut him off, “you’re right, that would hardly be…” her mouth twisted, trying to find the right word, “ _productive_.” Jazz resisted the urge to bury her head down and groan in frustration. “The exact fricken opposite, most likely,” she muttered under her breath. Then gathered her thoughts and forced a level of confidence and maturity she certainly _didn’t_ feel on her expression, “what exactly is he struggling with?”

“He’s still behind…”

 _Right_ , he was in the hospital for an entire week of school. And then home for another half week. So that was almost two whole weeks of missed classwork, not to mention homework, for every single one of his classes. _What do you expect?_ He certainly wasn’t brushing up on Shakespeare while he was in the _hospital_ … Then of course in the weeks after his discharge his priority still wasn’t the huge packet of missed work... that while important even a teacher’s pet like her would admit was trivial when compared to a _life-altering medical condition_ …

“He’s been having a very hard time catching up…”

 _Of course he was!_ This isn’t over yet, no matter how much Danny and everyone else seems to want to pretend it is. He is still having troubles with his coordination, motor control, stable breathing, and who knows what else... And it’s _surprising_ that he hasn’t been focusing too much on algebra or poems, or anything else? 

“…not helped by his habit of falling asleep in class,” the teacher finished the last part with an air of slight irritation. 

“Wait! What? He’s sleeping in class?” Jazz asked, her mind already racing ahead a mile a minute. Was he actually sleeping in class? Why? Was this fatigue brought on by stress? Was he sleeping at home? Was something keeping him up? Insomnia? Was this yet another symptom that he wanted to ignore? Was he passing out? Having trouble focusing and staying conscious because of low oxygen levels and slow heart rate? Body shutting down because of muscle deterioration? Essentially, creating something similar to Narcoleptic attacks?

Or laziness… a normal teenager tuning out in a boring class… _S_ _low down, you're doing it again... Catastrophizing... Not everything is the end of the world._

But even if it was just that... that was still a drastic change from how Danny usually acted. Danny was smart as a whip. However, while Jazz inherited their mother’s meticulous attention to detail and perfectionism—the kind that makes people who have never actually studied mental disorders call her a bit ‘OCD’—Danny got their dad’s ADHD.

But… those symptoms were familiar and something the school was aware of: difficulty focusing, spacing out, doodling, daydreaming, sometimes forgetting homework, having difficulty motivating himself to complete tasks he found uninteresting, hyper-focusing when something _did_ pique his interest, acting restless or unable to sit still... What Mr. Lancer was describing was… almost the _opposite_ … hmm, difficulty focusing was the same… but falling asleep, acting drained of all energy… 

“I’ve caught him a few times, yes." Mr. Lancer answered, "and I have informed him that if this behavior continues, I will have to take more drastic disciplinary actions. Same with his tardiness.”

“Tardiness? He’s late for class, too?” Now there was no excuse for that one… she knew he shouldn’t be late because she drove him... 

“Yes. And his overall work ethic has declined. Not to mention other things such as Mr. Falluca sending him to my office, for and I quote ‘carelessness bordering on _vandalism_ ’ in the science lab. Along with a lifetime ban on handling any fragile school equipment… and then, of course, the food fight last week…” he trailed off again.

When he started again it was clear he was choosing his words very carefully,“now I understand that… he had… extenuating circumstances.”

 _Do you?_ Jazz wanted to scoff. Do you _understand_? Because it seems like no one else freaking does… even the hospital staff didn’t have answers for what happened, why he recovered so quickly… or what was going on now… So how could a high school teacher possibly even begin to grasp the _severity_ of whatever was happening?

“And as this is all very soon after… and I don’t want to seem unreasonable… but,” the man sighed and continued, “Look... I wondered if maybe you could talk to him… he was a fine student, eager to learn, and now with everything going on he might need some... extra help to set him back on the right path, and you are quite the role model, Jasmine.”

That feeling was back, the one where if she opened her mouth she was going to scream. So tight a lipped smile it was. Right. _Role model._

“I will see what I can do to help,” she said as if she hadn’t been doing that to no avail for a month now. 

She knew how that would go over: ' _Hey Danny, I know you missed a lot of class... because of the… traumatic event–that we are all ignoring and pretending wasn’t extremely traumatizing and life-changing… anyway if you ever need some extra help. I’m here.'_

No. No, she couldn’t say any of that to him. Because older sisters weren’t supposed to have to talk with their younger sibling’s teacher about their schooling progress. 

Especially not siblings so close in age… Because they were siblings and inevitably, people would _compare_ them; even before all this mess, school had always been a sore spot in their relationship. Of course, it was, when Jazz had poured so much of her _identity_ into her own schoolwork and her top grades... She still struggled with achieving the ideal of Perfect Student… her competitive (sometimes admittedly _nasty_ ) and prideful nature had surfaced when that happened. 

Danny would coast his way through getting 90s so he could say he was a straight-A student, while she slaved and worked her butt off to give a 120% even though there wasn’t a real grade above 100—extra credit can only go so far—but if there was she would have gotten it. And truthfully, it made her a bit… frustrated and... _resentful_ that Danny never, well... hardly ever, gave his full effort. Like it or not, they were often competitors… and she was contending with someone whom she _knew could do better_. She didn’t know if he could be just as smart as her or maybe even smarter because he never tried, so even those immature victories felt a bit hollow. 

It wasn’t fair… for either of them and it also only strangled and stretched their bond thin. She sometimes worried that it might be what one day _snapped_ it.

Oh… oh, maybe it _wasn’t_ the Accident… Maybe he… Was he doing this, acting out in school, on purpose? Trying to accomplish something or prove a point or something? 

Was this somehow her fault? She had claimed the identity of The Perfect Student, The Academic Genius, so no doubt his teachers were constantly expecting something similar from him... Was this his stubborn and defiant way of proving he was different from her? _Was_ this teenage rebellion? 

Well... Whatever it was, Danny would _never_ in a million years listen to her if she brought up his declining school effort… Not after years and years of having their grades displayed right next to each other. Not when she had report card after report card that she had bragged about and rubbed in his face. Not when she knew he wasn’t confident in his own intelligence... something that if she was honest, she probably contributed to a good deal.

Not when she was Casper high’s volunteer tutor for _struggling_ kids.

Mr. Lancer, ignorant to all of this information easily accepted her weak response, and relaxed a bit, “that’s good to hear…” he turned to leave, but Jazz still heard his parting remark, muttered under his breath, “although this probably would’ve been a more appropriate discussion to have with your parents...” he grimaced and left. Another person who dreaded pulling the pin on the grenade that was interacting with the Fentons.

'Jasmine, you are more reasonable than your parents, so let me have what was essentially a _parent-teacher conference_ with you instead.'

Ha. Right. 

Perhaps this was all being blown out of proportion. It was still his third week back... just wait. He would bounce back. 

How long should we wait? How long could they keep saying wait?

‘ _It’s only been a couple of days since he returned from the hospital, but he’ll be fine_ ’.

‘ _It’s only his first week back at school, hell be fine.’_

_‘It’s only been a month, he’ll be fine’..._

Would they be amending that statement for years?

So far it was only a couple missed homework assignments here, a slow pace as it forced him to catch up and learn additional information simultaneously, and a low B or two there. He could, he will bounce back. Nothing to worry about. His GPA could still survive… and who knows, maybe this could even be a positive change. This could inspire him to work harder and stop coasting because he learned the consequences of only doing the bare minimum and not having anything extra to fall back on. 

Or it might get _worse_. He might get so stressed out that he continues the spiral and strays even further from where he was.

* * *

“So, how goes the stalking J?” Spike asked in a dull voice, during their free period, recognizing the notebook Jazz was writing in. 

She snapped it shut and tried to hide it under the various books surrounding her, as if it really was a _diary_ and she was embarrassed to let him see, “for the last time, I am not stalking!”

“Riiiiight, how goes the _research_?” he gave her _the look_ , “what happened to ‘ _givin' him space_ ', huh?”

“I… I w-was…”

Spike hummed, “and then the name _Fenton_ started running through the halls… and you got all worried and ran for the nearest library... Again.”

She sighed, “... Mr. Lancer came to talk to me about his schoolwork earlier…”

“Ah. So… Gonna force tutor him?”

“Ha. No, that would not go well… _at all_...”

“Well, no sh*t, but I’m kinda surprised _you_ actually admitted that. Usually, nothin' can stop your warpath”

“Yeah... But… I’ve been thinking and maybe… maybe it’s better if I just let him make his own choices...”

“All while you continue to stalk… sorry _monitor_ him?”

“Is it so bad to want to watch out for him? He’s my baby brother!”

“He’s your _teenage_ brother.”

“I know!” she said. 

Spike picked through the stack of books Surviving Adolescence through Therapy, The Adolescence Battlefield, The Generation Miscommunication, and why parents don’t understand their kids and many, many more. “oh F*ck! J, you’re _spiraling_ ,” he gave her a long-suffering look as he pulled the notebook from her. “Ok… what crazy theory have ya come up with now?”

“It’s not _crazy_!” she said in a way that an outside observer might’ve called _crazy_. She forced herself to calm down, “I am in complete control of my mental faculties, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, see, that’s what worries me…” Spike deadpanned flipping through her research on her brother. “So?” he asked again “Usually I don’t even have to ask... You just tell me. Whether I wanna hear it or not,” he muttered the last part with a half-serious glare.

“I don’t have one…” at his skeptical look she continued, “or rather there are too many… I can’t pinpoint what is going on… there are too many variables and the only fricken thing that is constant is the stress and trouble it’s causing him.”

She snatched back the notebook, “At first I thought it was his Accident… but the doctors cleared him… then they diagnosed him with Bradycardia… but that _doesn’t fit!_ ” She grabbed a medical encyclopedia and rifled through until she found the page on irregular heartbeats, “And if I, a fricken _high school_ student, can see that surely a trained medical professional could… So why to give him that diagnosis?”

She slammed that book shut and opened the next, “then I thought maybe you’re right and its just normal teenager stuff… but it’s not! Then the rumors take off and ok maybe it’s just the result of a crush... But no. _Nothing_ fits. Then there are my _insane_ parents, insisting it’s some absurd ‘ghost’ disease that they can zap, suck, or force outta him using some newly invented _torture device_..." Jazz broke off. Forced herself calm... Again. When she spoke again it was so soft, but also shaking with emotion. "It’s almost like… it’s something completely _new_... unprecedented and unpredictable, that’s what they said in the hospital. So all we—I, the doctors, my nut job parents, the school staff, and anyone freaking else—can do is monitor… is watch as he continues to struggle and fall apart. He was seriously ill right just last week… this still isn’t over… and it’s not getting better!”

“Wanna hear what I think?" Spike asked, and at her misreadle nod said, "sounds to me like he has a terminal disease I once learned about called _life_.”

“I am being-”

“-Serious? So am I," he cut her off. "Did ya know we start dying the minute we are born? Every day brings us closer to death. And y’know what? _F*ck life_ , it’s a stupid sexually transmitted disease that’s gonna one day kill us all. Or maybe it’s the result of the oxygen slowly poisoning us… whatever, it hurts and sucks and never seems to get any better. Doctors sure as hell can’t cure it… so we just cope. Sometimes there ain’t no f*cking cure. Sometimes all we can do is just f*cking live with whatever sh*tty hand we were dealt. I know you know that… with parents like yours…”

“But there has to be a way to make it better. I can’t just give up. Besides, you sound almost... suicidal...”

“I'm not, _you_ of all people know that... Otherwise you'd have already diagnosed me with depression and tried to cure my suicidality... Instead of just my rebellious attitude and sh*tty family life."

"I know you're not... Just that worldview sounds so... Pesimistic and... defeatest."

"Pesimistic? Try _honest_. Im tired of lies saying that life _isn't_ a Cluster F*ck... It is. As for defeatest... Dunno sometimes throwing in the f*cking towel is easier...”

“You don’t believe that. I know you don't. If you did, your parents would have their perfect obedient doll… or you really would be sucidial... You are still fighting...”

“Ha. F*ckin understatement,” he muttered with a dark undercurrent of anger and hurt.

“Well, so am I...”

“Yeah, but J, you’re trying to fight someone else’s battle.”

“Yeah.. maybe I am…” she flipped the book in her hand. Now surrounded by closed books, she sat with her hands covering her face, “this is the part where you tell me to ignore these red flags and mind my own business, right?”

“This is the part where I tell you to F*cking _relax_. Y’know as much as you know about stuff like this… I’m kinda surprised you think it would be over so soon.”

“What are you talking about! I am not the one that thinks this is over, everyone else is.”

“So then why are you trying to force it to be over? Forcing your brother to be better?”

“That’s not what I’m doing!”

Is it? She knew these things take time to heal. Danny would need time to adjust. Time to catch up in school. Time to open up. She wasn’t trying to _force_ him to be better; she wanted to _help him_ be better. 

* * *

Jazz was reading in the kitchen when her mother came down… not in her jumpsuit? What? She was wearing… A nice simple, yet it complemented her figure elegantly, dress that, while still the same color pallet as her jumpsuit, was clearly not made of Fentondex material. “Mom? What are you wearing?” 

“Oh, this? Well, considering that we were asked to chaperone the dance-”

“Wait! What!? You and dad are chaperoning the dance!?” she must’ve somehow heard wrong. Please tell her she heard wrong. Because How could that happen? Who _approved_ that?

“Yes. I was admittedly a bit surprised myself, but apparently, Jack and Danny’s teacher really hit it off during the parent-teacher conference. He asked for us personally!”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” she smiled. “Now, where is your father? If we aren’t careful we’re going to be late.”

Her father came up from the lab, toying with some random device and not looking at all like he was expecting to go anywhere anytime soon. 

“Jack, there you are! What on earth have you been doing?” it was not a usual sight to see Maddie yank a half-finished prototype out of Jack’s hands. Then again, it was not a usual sight to see her mother dressed in civilian clothes. Much less a dress. With light makeup covering her face instead of a hood and goggles. Her auburn hair stylized, framing her face. A compact in her hand, applying lipstick that didn’t double as a weapon. Jack stared down at his wife in confusion as these things no doubt occurred to him as well. “I thought you were getting ready!” She stamped her—high-heeled—foot impatiently “We cannot be late…”

“Ready?” her father asked, looking almost dazed.

“Yes, I set out a dress shirt, jacket, and tie upstairs. Now go change,” her mom’s tone was getting more annoyed with each word.

“Change? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

"Jaaaack,” she stretched out the man’s name in exasperation, “we talked about this, remember? We need to _not_ wear our hazmat suits to the dance.”

“Mads, you know I get a rash without my jumpsuit. Wait dance?”

“Yes Jack, the dance, the dance at Danny's school, that you vulenteered us to supervise. The one that starts in a couple of hours. Now. Go. Change. Jack.” it hardly mattered who you were when Madeline Fenton used that tone of voice, you listened. And her father turned and did just that.

A few minutes later, the father of the Fenton household trudged down the stairs looking for all the world like a petulant child who had just had his toys taken away. It was such a strange sight to see him without that eye-bleeding orange jumpsuit. He wore a white dress shirt, a black suit jacket over that, a pair of black dress pants, striped orange and black tie--like Maddie keeping some of his color schemes--and an expression that matched the one Danny made for picture day.

“There, much better” his wife adjusted the tie which he had put on incorrectly and lopsided as a testament to his inexperience.

“I still don’t understand why I have to wear this stupid suit.”

“ _Because_ it’s Danny’s first dance, Jack. If we’re gonna chaperone this thing, we have to make sure we don’t embarrass him.”

“Embarrass him? How would we embarrass him?” her father asked, sounding honestly confused.

Jazz threw in her two cents and hopefully at least reminded her mother of the importance not to make… another scene, “Well I for one think it’s great whenever you guys do anything that _doesn’t_ have something to do with your _sick_ obsession with ghosts.

Before her father could rebut, her mother gave a sigh and her own reasoning, “Were his parents... And you know how kids are, Jack.”

“Why are we supervising this thing again?”

“Jack,” her mother said slowly, her brow crinkling, “honey… are you feeling alright?” she moved her hand from his tie to his forehead, nearly standing on tiptoes to reach. “You’ve been acting strange lately… You are the one who accepted to chaperone... “

“I am? I did?”

“Yes, a great way to be involved and show Danny we care, keep an eye on him, and of course have fun dancing.”

“Funny. I don’t remember volunteering to chaperone the dance.” he screwed up his face, trying very hard to call the moment to mind, but to no avail. “It’s all a... vague _blur_.”

Now her mother looked really worried. “Honey, do you feel disorientated?”

“Yeah, a bit...”

“And you’ve been acting strangely out of character… and”

“I’ve lost time… moments that are just...”

 _Uh oh_ , Jazz recognized them going through the list of ' _symptoms_ _of ghostly_ _overshadowing_ ’ from the many times her parents asked it of either her or Danny. She needed to zip that in the bud right now. “You can be pretty absentminded Dad, how many times have you misplaced things like your keys”

“Hmm… maybe,” her dad said, his voice unfocused and acting far more suggestible than normal. 

But before anything else could happen, Danny came into the kitchen. It looks like he also wasn’t ready yet. Strange Jazz would’ve assumed that he’d be excited… Danny’s expression was mixed when caught sight of their parents at least trying… 

He grabbed a glass out of the cabinet and the Fenton Water Filter out of the fridge and poured himself a glass of water. 

“Hey, Danny,” Jazz greeted. 

He stopped pouring to look up at her, his expression guarded and suspicious. A reminder that lately, every time they’ve talked, it’s been about how he insists he’s fine when he’s clearly not. He was bracing himself for it to start again. 

Ah. She really was pushing him further and further away. Spike was right. Well, then.. she needed to back off. Stop pushing all the clinical data… Stop dissecting his behavior and obsessing over what it might mean... Maybe do her best to re-establish some levity and light sisterly teasing. “I just wanted to say, I know”

“Kn-know? Know wh-what?” he asked, his hands started shaking so much that he was nearly spilling the water as he tried to take a sip. 

Jazz nodded with a playful smirk, “mm-hmm, your little secret,”

Danny gagged, an actual real-life spit take. Coughing and trying to regain his breath, he squeaked out, “s-secret? Wh-what s-secret?”

“Oh, you know, the clumsiness, the nervousness. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before...”

He said something very loud at the same time as if to stop her from talking. As a result, both of their words were jumbled up and hard to make out. 

“-ts---iiieem _not!_ \---gg--oh-“ 

“---You-----av------ggirl----end“” Jazz finished as her statement was longer. 

He looked terrified a second ago, but now that cleared away. His eyes widened for half a second “ _ohh…_ ” he scowled, “I-I mean… _she’s_ not my _girlfriend,_ Jazz. She’s just going to the dance with me."

“A girlfriend?! That’s great, well done, son! I can’t wait to meet her! And show her all the things we’ve been working on! Oh, and warn her about ghosts!” their father said, sounding much more like himself and easing the anxiousness in their mother’s expression. 

Danny looked mortified. 

“You better let her know your family’s insane now, Danny.” Jazz said, laying a hand on his shoulder as if she was offering sage advice. “If you marry her and she finds out later, that’s called _entrapment_.”

He shoved her off with a grumble of “I better go get ready,” and made a beeline to his room.

Jazz watched him go with a soft smile, but when she glanced back at her parents in a heated debate on whether Jack could take any inventions, the smile slid off her face. 

  
“Jack, no! This is for Danny, remember and we said we wouldn’t.”

  
“But Mads, a highschool dance, teens with hormonal imbalances? A school that already has a history of hauntings? A situation like that is ripe for ectoplasmic manipulation!”

Her mother looked like she was considering it, but then she shook her head. “No Jack, not tonight.”

“Nothing big… just something, it’s dangerous to be completely unarmed and I have a feeling those ecto-scumbags are planning to strike again.”

“You _always_ have that feeling, dad,” Jazz said, putting as much of her own disapproval as she could in those words. 

“Gotta always be prepared Jazzy, Ghost Hunting rule numero uno!”

“Fine.” Maddie gave in because her mother was just as convinced of the dangers these imaginary creatures pose. “We will take the GAV and keep the weapons in there… just in case. But no inventions in the school. We are there to chaperone. Not ghost hunt. We are there for Danny."

“I know. I can’t shake it, Mads a rattling of my bones... telling me something bad’s gonna happen tonight.”

Jazz felt the same way, thinking of all the reasons her parents should _never_ be supervising anything. She was suddenly very glad that she wasn’t going, not that she really wanted to… Even though she had been asked which incidentally is how she found out that her designation on the social ladder as an ‘acceptable nerd’. In Dash Baxter’s eloquent and tactful words she was ‘ _smart enough to be nerdy but hot enough to be bangable and just freaky enough to be a challenge_ ’. And yet it had surprised him when she turned him down, honestly.

Anyway… She had thought that maybe this dance would be good for Danny, a chance to enjoy some social interaction. A chance to unwind all of that stress he carried with him… And she wouldn’t be there to make anything more awkward. But now their parents would be. And she wouldn’t be there to corral them or handle damage control. So… 

This was… very likely to end in _disaster_

Oh my... Goodluck, little brother. 


	11. The Fenton Family... Was Truly One of a Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deciding to take a step back and ease the pressure off her brother, Jazz takes a new approach. After all the root behind every problem has been their parent's insane obsession with ghosts. So before she can help Danny, maybe she should return to trying to fix that first. Her new plan attempted to get her mother back involved with the Scientific Community and divert Maddie's attention from the paranormal. It was risky, especially since she had invited a reporter into their house... But if all goes well this could be the start of a new beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode 3! This was a hard chapter to figure out how I wanted this to play out. It has been both super fun and also challenging to try and flesh out the background B-side (or on some episodes even C-side or one scene) storyline of each episode. I want to profusely express my gratitude again to everyone who has read, commented, bookmarked, and/or left a kudos on my little story. I am glad that you guys are liking both the story and how I am characterizing Jazz. As always there's no Beta and any constructive criticism is more than welcomed. 
> 
> I do want to address that while I am writing my little story for fun and creative writing practice, I do talk about real issues that people do struggle with. I have done my best to do research and not portray them with disrespect. This story is from the perspective of Jazz, and she is a prideful 16-year old who believes herself to be infallible, therefore the thoughts that she expresses might not be either healthy or completely accurate. I have done this on purpose to highlight her flaws. However, I understand that some people do deal with these problems in real life, so I did want to provide this warning and disclaimer. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading.

The dance _hadn’t_ gone well.

Someone must’ve spiked the punch or something—unless it was another gas leak… But really, again? Seemed rather... _Unlikely_ —because the following Monday everyone was buzzing with stories of a giant neon-colored glowing dragon disrupting the dance and trashing the football field.

And the football field had indeed been trashed. Someone… Had _somehow_ ripped one of the goalposts out of the ground. Sets of bleachers now resembled match work. Gigantic ruts were dug in places as if something had raked the ground with enormous claws. The Casper High Ravens were unable to play during the weekend, because of repairs… Which had the special bonus of making the S-ranker and A-lister jocks and cheerleaders furious and out for social outcast blood. P.E. Class would also only be held in the Gym this week, instead of using the sports field. The gym, itself, was mostly spared, but the girl’s locker room was in shambles and there was a massive hole in the ceiling that needed to be patched up. Seriously, between whatever happened at the dance and the gas leak a few weeks back, Casper High was not looking too good in terms of safety. Not to mention funding-wise… The School Board was probably going to slice the budget in other areas to compensate.

Her parents—to the surprise of no one—blamed it on ghosts. Ignoring how that didn’t even make sense; ghosts are supposedly _"spirits of the deceased"_ , right? Or—what was it her mother always said?—" _Ectoplasmic imprints of postmortem consciousness"._.. So even if... Say _hypothetically_ , ghosts were real... A dragon, _really_? Dragons were still mythical creatures, so they can’t be dead or have had a consciousness to create an " _ectoplasmic imprint"..._ The least they could do is keep their mad ideas _consistent_ … To clarify: No, ghosts don’t exist. No, dragons don’t exist either. So… A ghost dragon? Need she say more? Unless her parents meant that it was a ghost that had spiked the punch… Which was a-whole-nother level of ridiculous… Not that she’d put anything past them.

Her father was also using the " _ghostly infiltration of the dance"_ as proof in his " _expert ghost hunting instincts"_. Not to mention his claim, " _we can never let our guard down; we can never be without our weapons again"_. Unfortunately, he had swayed her mother to agree with him… so they were now toting around highly explosive and dangerous weapons everywhere. 24/7 armed with the Fenton Finder, to detect ghosts and various ectoguns, to blast them. And unlike before, everywhere, now meant _everywhere_. The grocery store, parent-teacher conferences, the post office, etc. Jazz is counting down the days, as they rack up complaints, until there will be some _Fenton Ban_ placed in the windows. It was just lucky that the Fenton parents didn’t have a habit of going out around town, although her father also mentioned ‘ _ghost patrolling_ ' so…

One good thing that came from that night: Jazz highly doubted anyone would allow the Fenton parents to chaperone a school event ever again.

Jazz had tried to talk to Danny asking how the dance went. If he was ok. If he saw this alleged hallucinatory dragon. His responses were confusing, all over the place, and ultimately unhelpful.

When she tried doubling down, he cringed and gave an embarrassed sigh. “I'd… uh, really rather not talk about... the dance.”

Oh. _Ohhh_. So something else probably happened too… Considering everything, he probably had gotten his first breakup at the dance. She knows he said he and the girl he took to the dance, the A-lister Paulina, weren’t officially dating… But he’d most likely hoped for that to be the end result of going to the dance together… So he still went through that disappointment, rejection, and… Heartbreak.

She opened her mouth to provide comfort but. Then. Stopped... “I...understand,” instead, with an enormous effort and a clenched heart, Jazz backed off.

Danny looked taken aback. “W-wait, th-that‘s _it?_ Y-you’re not gonna… m-make me?“ he asked, half to himself.

The words he chose, " _make me",_ reinforced her decision... “Not if you’re not ready to…“ She got up and crossed to the door, giving him space.

“O-oh,“ his eyes narrowed as if trying to figure out if this was a trap. Yet more proof that the last thing he would ever do was trust her.

She reached the doorway...Hand on the handle, foot just barely past the threshold, back facing him... But, because she was _Jazz_ , and it might kill her to leave anything alone... She couldn't leave without saying one last thing, “but…” she heard the slight groan he tried to stifle... “If..." She shook her head slightly and turned to meet his gaze over her shoulder, wondering when he'd become so much harder to read. " _When_ you are ready… and feel like you need to talk… about anything… the dance, school, _other stuff_ … just know that I’m here.”

Then she left his room, rather than waiting to be kicked out. And rather than having the door slammed in her face, she closed it herself. And instead of hearing the telltale sound of him turning the lock...

He cracked the door open, dull blue eyes peering out of the space between the wall and the door. “Hey uh, Jazz?“

“Yeah?”

He stood there for a while as if debating on saying anything… “Thnks” he muttered, hardly opening his mouth and more than he had opened the door. But it was a start. What little she could see of his stature relaxed slightly as some of that everpresent tension in his shoulders eased “ and… um…uh Goodnight.” 

It wasn’t usually Danny who said it first. She smiled softly, “goodnight little brother.“

* * *

_''Leave the kid alone, Jazz."_

Yes… that was what she needed to do. Wait for him to come to her instead of interrogating him with his back against the wall... 

_''Leave me alone and mind your own business.''_

Ok… She strengthened her resolve to back off when it came to her little brother. She’d keep a watchful eye–which was _not stalking_ no matter what Spike said–but she would stop butting in so much… Unless something dangerous started happening.

So, she would return to her new project–more accurately her old, old project that she had begun when she was seven years old: Operation Get Her Parents to Realize Ghosts are _Not_ Real. Because once she accomplished that, everything else would be infinitely better. After all " _ghosts"_ were the root of all their other problems... Just not in the way her parents thought. 

She had made progress a few times… There were moments when she almost got through to them… Moments so _tantalizingly_ close to the answer, before it slipped through her fingers. The failure of the Portal almost did it… But then whatever Danny did to it somehow worked… Or at least made it appear functional; the machine now glowed and swirled around the goop that they called ‘' _ectoplasm_ ’' around like a freakish lava lamp… To say it worked as in was a " _stable tear in the fabric of reality and allowed access to the dimension of ghosts"_ was ludicrous. 

Danny’s Accident also almost did it too...

There was a time when Jazz thought that might’ve served as a wake-up call… A line that even their hopelessly oblivious parents could realize they had _crossed…_ but no. 

Then there was the day of the food fight when she had been the closest than ever before… A day when they had looked at her and for once saw the damage they were doing. It was what she had longed for all her life… But that too had _failed_. An unfortunately timed hallucination caused by a ruptured gas leak had reinforced their delusions… Another moment that left her questioning the _absurdity_ that was her life.

Her parents always bounced back. Can’t keep a Fenton _delusion_ down.

Well, _fine_ , she’s a Fenton too, just as stubborn and relentless as they are. If it came down to a war of attrition, battle after battle for the safety and sanity of their family, then Jazz sure as hell would _not_ be the first to fold. 

Now, she needed a plan, an alternative approach… She’d tried being open and honest with them and telling them how they were making her feel… And it hadn’t worked. Huh, guess Spike was right after all: in real life sometimes it’s _not_ that simple. 

If they would ever agree to see a professional and get diagnosed, then they could receive proper psychiatric treatment… But how to convince them they had enough of a problem to get a diagnosis.

And there _was_ enough of a problem to get a diagnosis... Right? Didn't they have troubles that warranted a diagnosis? So, then what diagnosis?

Hmm. Firmly held false beliefs or delusions with no basis in reality could be a sign of _schizophrenia…_ She often wondered if that was the case. 

Sometimes they seemed to display symptoms…

> Psychosis

Jazz may use the term “delusions” frequently, but she did not use it _frivolously._ She meant what she said. Her parents were delusional, literally.

According to psychiatrist and existential philosopher Karl Jaspers, a delusion encompasses three factors: certainty, incorrigibility, and finally, impossibility. Jack and Maddie Fenton ticked each box. 

The first warning sign is the absolute rigidity of the conviction. People, especially Scientists like her parents, naturally have periods of doubt and times when they have to entertain questioning ideas. In a world as vast and with a species as complex as humans, very few things can boast 100% certainty. A conviction that never ever falters for a single solitary second is a red flag. This conviction can result in the refusal to change this false claim. This unhealthy unchangeability can cause the person to deny all evidence that seems to contradict the delusion. Human beings must adapt and change, our thoughts and ideas must grow and develop. A stagnated belief is a worrisome thing; no amount of logical reasoning, sensory information, or scientific data will ever dent the impenetrable wall of this denial of reality.

But the piece of the puzzle that made Jazz realize that this _wasn’t normal_ , was the absolute impossibility of their claims. Things incongruous with the world around them. The strangest of the bizarre ideas that seemingly had no plausible genesis.

Not to mention the intense distress that these false beliefs cause.

What her parents believed also seemed to fall in line with the commonly reported specific themes recognized by the DSM-V. 

Such as the _Capgras Delusion_ , where a person believes that their friends or family are gone; not themselves, but taken over or replaced by an imposter. The most recent example that Jazz had personally experienced, when her mom and dad had attacked her! Smoked her out, pointed weapons at her, and not to mention captured her in a fishing net. All because they honestly thought she was no longer their daughter. It was a frightening thing to know that she could become a target so easily. It was a terrifying thing that these delusions can make it so her parents were willing to attack or hurt their own children... 

Every day they acted out Delusions of Persecution. “Ghosts”, her parents lived in a world where these creatures of darkness were conspiring against them. Horrific predators that sucked humans dry, snatched bodies and wanted nothing more but destruction. Supernatural eldritch beings that could hide from detection, bypass any normal means of security, and could wield such unfathomable power. These monsters caused everything from either a minor inconvenience to an earth-shattering disaster. And therefore, in the typical Delusion of Grandeur style, Jack and Maddie had to eradicate these horrors. Cut them open to gather information on possible weaknesses. Prepare for the inevitable fight. Protect their children. Save the day, fix the problem, and receive recognition.

> Selective attention 

Focusing entirely too hard on one thing, the one thing being ghosts, and entirely missing others… They were unable to recognize things happening in reality. Completely incapable of thinking, talking, and worrying about anything other than these figments of their mind. _A split from reality,_ an inability to differentiate between fantasy and their day-to-day lives. 

A diminished level of being able to care for themselves or anyone else.

> Strange disorganized behavior…

They acted as if they were _incompatible_ with how neural normative people behaved. They barely had any social groups. The neighbors wanted nothing to do with them, especially after the amount of times they've caused explosions, blackouts, and general disturbances. The most interaction they get is when someone calls the fire department or files a noise complaint. Jack and Maddie Fenton consistently seemed to provide evidence that they could _not_ function in everyday society.

But... At the same time, some symptoms _didn’t_ fit.

> Diminished emotional responses or depressive episodes or anxiety attacks…

No, just the opposite; her parents were as eccentric and energetic as possible… well other than the time when the Portal didn’t work but that was an outlier. They weren’t overcome with anxiety as you would expect from someone in a constant state of paranoia psychosis… Nope, if anything they were _overjoyed_ to hunt these specters down.

> Incoherent or nonsense speech...

Sure they talked about ghosts and their inventions which could technically count as the _topics_ were nonsensical… But that symptom refers to more jumbled up, rambling, fragmented, or incorrectly patterned speech that fell into what is known as _Word Salad…_

Even if they did derail conversations to perpetually steer them back towards ghosts…

> Hallucinations. 

Maybe… but they themselves admitted they’d never actually seen a ghost clearly before the food fight… not that that had ever deterred them.

> Disorganized, incongruent behaviors and emotions.

Her parents might be eccentric… they did seem to enjoy disasters, to some extent, because they believed them to be caused by ghosts… They believed that they could fix terrible situations by charging in and blasting away. They did seem to be out of touch emotionally with general society, especially her father, but… There were other explanations for that. 

And finally–not really a symptom but a precursor to most mental illnesses–they sometimes _did_ act like...

> _A clear danger to themselves and others._

She had often gone back and forth on whether or not that one applied. Wondering if their neglectful behavior was inherently dangerous as well as generally harmful. 

But then... Danny’s Accident… It had almost cemented her thoughts that it definitely _was_ and it definitely _did_. She thought about the threat she'd given her mother when Danny was admitted to the hospital… _'I will call CPS'_.

That wasn’t the first time she’d considered that, even if it was the first time she _told_ her parents. But she had the number written down in her notebook–tucked in a corner of a page that detailed how _dangerous_ breaks from reality could be. She'd felt so _guilty_ when she wrote it. She felt a stab of shame every time she saw it. It represented giving up. That was the button for the nuke, the end of it all. Her final play that she had sworn she would _never_ use... Unless of course, she reached the End of the Line Worst Case Scenario. 

No... _schizophrenia_ wasn’t the only explanation. Too many of the symptoms had to be ignored or obfuscated to make them fit… So that diagnosis, at least, didn’t fit. 

So… then. Take a step back. _Going overboard, as usual, Dr. Fenton_ … Just assume for the time being, that this isn’t a literal psychological mental break… It would be easier that way, wouldn't it? Because if it wasn't something that serious than she really could fix it. She could force them out of this. 

But if they did have a mental disorder then... What could she even do? So right now... She should try and unravel these maladaptive conceptions... 

So, then what would be the reason behind the belief? 

If hypothetically it was just normal interest they were taking too far… Which she had to admit did hold some water because Fentons were...to put it lightly, _passionate people._ Who had... _difficulty_ containing their enthusiasm and refraining from going to extremes. They liked to babble and steamroll the conversation when it came to their fascinations. Quite honestly... _All of them_ had that problem. Their Dad: any inventions or ghost-related thing. Their Mom: any theory or experiment about a ghost. Jazz, herself: Psychology. Danny: space and the stars. Once you got a Fenton started they could go on and on, blathering until the cows came home.

So ok, a " _normal"_ hobby that they had hyperfocused on and nurtured this all-consuming ideas over the years.

Maybe the Sunk Cost Fallacy played a motive because how many people would be able to come to terms with every decision they ever made _since_ _college_ being built on a _false_ premise? As well as Cognitive Dissonance and Confirmation Biases keeping it alive and strong.

Well if it was an interest that took over… 

Then what? What could she do? They won’t listen to her when she is honest… so she has to be a bit more underhanded… Sabotage? Hmm, maybe she should–at this point for Danny’s sake if nothing else… A failed invention almost did the trick last time… But no, because now the portal does " _work"_ , now they had " _seen ghosts"_ , and now they were even _more_ cemented in this line of thinking than ever before... So little inventions failing wouldn’t do anything to dissuade them.

Hmmm. Different approach. New approach. Maybe she could pull them out by engaging their interests in something _non-ghost-related_ … Hard, extremely insanely difficult but theoretically not impossible. They were scientists after all…

It would be easier if that plan focused on her mother. Her mother loved the science behind "ecto-biology" and ''para-bioengineering'' which meant that if Jazz could just get her mom’s scientific curiosity away from ghosts and towards more traditional projects, she just might have a fighting chance. 

_Then_ she could work on her father maybe even with the help of her mom. 

* * *

That morning her textbook was conspicuously absent. Instead, a slim magazine sat in its place. She was at the kitchen table reading it. Her mom was fiddling with something. The boys had yet to arrive for breakfast, so it was just Jazz and Maddie. The perfect time to strike. Jazz let out an exclamation of excitement that admittedly might have been a tad overdone, but it had gotten her mother’s fickle attention.

“What is it, sweetie?” her mom asked in a polite, slightly curious voice.

“Genius Magazine is looking for the next bright mind to feature in the upcoming issue!”

“Oh, really? That’s interesting,” her mom said, hardly listening. 

“I know right!” Now, here came the tricky part. “Wouldn’t it be so cool if _you_ were on the cover?”

Now Maddie stopped what she was doing and looked up, her full focus on her daughter. “ _Me_?!”

“Yeah, I mean, you _are_ a genius, and any one of your _groundbreaking_ _achievements_ could _deserve_ the cover spot.” Madeline Fenton was a woman who had the deepest pride in her work. She had struggled, just as Jazz did, with proving herself exceptional against people who underestimated her. Jazz knew that her mother was where she got her own intense drive to succeed, and same as any overachiever, Maddie wanted _recognition_ for her accomplishments...

Her father liked tinkering and messing around with stuff. He enjoyed showing his gadgets off, relished having grand ideas about Fenton being a household ghost hunting name… but truthfully, he was never that concerned with what others thought about him. Criticisms rolled right off his back, half because of how outgoing he was and half because he didn’t quite pick up on social cues.

But her mother? Her mother was the one that scrubbed the graffiti off their doors, windows, and walls with the fire of resentment in her eyes. Her mother was the one whose polite smile became infinitely tighter whenever someone made a jab at their lack of credibility or implied dysfunctional cognitive faculties. Her mother, who both knew and hated that everyone considered her, with her multiple hard-earned degrees and an industry she helped build from the ground up, little more than a laughingstock. The less than respectful reputation the Fentons had was a sore spot. One that Jazz could apply the due amount of pressure to put her plan in motion. “and it could serve as proof that you are not just some _town loon_...”

Was it slightly… Well… _Manipulative_ and conniving to use her mother’s internal flaws and deepest insecurities to get urge her to agree?… _Yes_. It probably was. But… it was for everyone’s own good. So, that made it—if not ok, then at least—forgivable, right?

“Yes, I suppose hypothetically... But, honestly, I doubt they would want the,” her mom’s expression constricted as if saying the next couple words were distasteful, “ _town loon_ on the cover.” Maddie returned to messing with her contraption with a bit more vigor than before.

“Yeah, but what about the projects that _the US government_ commissioned? Even putting aside public opinion, no one can deny you’re _brilliant_.” Another insecurity, because those who knew their non-ghost related inventions gave them due praise... But that only made it worse when they were ridiculed for their passion projects. 

“I dunno, sweetie...”

“But... Wouldn’t it be so cool to have a chance to actually receive _recognition_ for your hard work? Be published in something _reputable_?”

“It’s a… nice thought”

“So then if they agreed to it, would you do it?”

“Hypothetically?”

Jazz shook her head, “Actually. Cuz, I emailed them a couple days ago, and they just got back to me.” 

Furiously working hands slowed, and then eventually stopped. Lilac eyes met teel. “Jazz, honey...”

But Jazz was on a roll and she wasn't about to relinquish her influence of this conversation, "and guess what? They said yes! They said yes!"

“Said yes to what?" A sudden voice asked, Jazz nearly jumped as Danny groggily appeared behind her—she hadn't heard him come down the stairs at all—looking annoyed and already _so done_ with a day that hadn’t even started yet. "Did you ask if you were a _conceited snob_?” he grumbled.

“Well,” Jazz huffed. “ _Good morning_ to you too.”

He collapsed into his chair, put his head on the table, and groaned. “dunnowhazo _good_ boudit.” He paused for a moment, sat up, rubbed his eyes, and bit back a yawn. “Oh, maybe... _Coffee_ ,” he slurred out as he stumbled to make himself a cup.

He breathed it in like with the expression of someone coming up for air after staying underwater too long. “Yeah, coffee’s good.”

Jazz glanced at the murky black substance in his cup and frowned slightly. His coffee addiction was relatively new too. She remembered what Mr. Lancer said about him falling asleep in class… He had huge bags under his bloodshot eyes and his skin was pale and clammy—although, it usually was nowadays. He looked _exhausted_. So then he _was_ having trouble sleeping. 

“Good morning sweetie, did you sleep ok?” asked their mother, making Jazz wonder if she was mentally exaggerating how bad Danny looked or if her mother was _blind_. 

His response was a snort of laughter. “Likethefrickendead,” he muttered into his mug.

Jazz forcibly shifted her attention from all the worries Danny was giving her—He hadn’t even done anything _that_ strange. _You’re just overreacting_. Remember, different approach. Don’t freak out about him right now and don't _freak him out_ by freaking out about him—and turned back to her mother. “So, how about it? Will you do it, Mom?” Jazz tried to continue their conversation before she lost complete control of the spotlight... 

Oh, too late; her father had bounded into the room, bringing with him his aura of excitement. 

“How’s it coming, Mads?!” He was holding another one of his ridiculous gadgets. 

“Should work now,” she said, handing him another piece that he fit in easily. 

“Awesome! Thanks, Sweetcheeks.” He stopped when he saw Jazz’s magazine, “hey, a magazine! Is that the swimsuit edition?”

Mortified, Jazz snatched it back. “No! Ugh, Dad. It is an extremely well-known and _influential_ magazine that is recognized by the _Respected Intellectual Community_ and they have just agreed to put Mom on the cover!”

“Mads on the front of a magazine? Nice! You knock out those other models, Baby!”

“No, it is not that kind of magazine! It’s Genius Magazine! This month is women’s appreciation month. For women geniuses, by women geniuses and about women geniuses.”

“So it is the swimsuit edition,” Danny snarked. Then he stopped as if something just dawned on him and spit out some of his coffee, “Wait? Oh, gross! _Mom’s_ gonna be in the swimsuit edition?!”

“It. is. _not_. the. Swimsuit edition. It is a magazine dedicated to scientific discoveries, proposed theories, and original inventions.” Jazz read the slogan out loud before realizing what a bad _bad_ mistake it was, but the words had already left her mouth and it was too late.

“Inventions!” Her dad pounced. “I’ve got just the thing!”

“Wait! No, Dad!” she yelled, trying very unsuccessfully to stop this all from going pear-shaped. “This is a chance for everyone to see that you guys _are_ capable of functioning like normal people and _not_ crazy ghost hunting freaks.”

“Hey, they are not crazy ghost hunting freaks!” Danny said, for some reason, suddenly very offended. She met his gaze, neither of them had shied away from the fact that their parents were... _Nuts_. However, now Danny seemed to… have changed his mind. “At least not really _that_ crazy, and… there’s no need to call them _freaks_ ,” he muttered into his coffee mug, trying to hide the red spreading on his face.

“Speaking of ghost hunting,” Jack interjected, displaying stunning tunnel vision. 

“Check this out,” he switched on the invention and began showing it off with the gusto and excitement of a cheesy old-timey commercial announcer. “The Fenton Ghost Gabber! This little beauty takes all those strange and mysterious sounds of the unknown that ghosts use to communicate and translates them into words that humans can understand!” 

He was waving the device in Danny’s face. He held it out in front of him, and Danny took the opportunity to encourage him, with a slightly mischievous smile he leaned into the receiver. “Um uh... Boo?” 

“I am a ghost, fear me” the machine quote, unquote _translated_. 

Danny didn’t seem to enjoy his joke as much as he had intended. His jaw dropped and he looked uneasy, perhaps because he just realized that now he was going to have to convince their parents that he was _not_ in fact a ghost. Honestly, Jazz couldn’t help but think that it kinda served him right. The last thing their parents needed was an egging on!

“Um uh… I-I’d b-better get to school!” Danny booked it out of the room, but not before the machine lit up again and repeated his nervous outburst adding an apparently obligatory “fear me” to the end.

Jazz rolled her eyes at the whole display. 

With Danny out the door and Jack preoccupied with contemplating what it meant that the device had reacted to his son, the conversation between the two Fenton women could continue. 

Finally, her mom gave, while not a complete and total yes, a positive response to the idea. “That’s great about the magazine, sweetie. But your father and I are a team. We built FentonWorks and made all our best contributions _together_. Besides, every genius woman deserves to have a genius man by her side.” 

“Standing side by side on the cover of Genius Magazine!” Jack joined in. “The Fentons are a _family_ of geniuses! That should appeal to your fancy-schmancy magazine! Tell the whole world that the Fenton Family is here!”

A Family of geniuses wouldn’t be too hard of a sell, but a _Fenton_ Family and all the stigma that carried would be. 

“Fine,” Jazz relented; she was nothing if not desperate at this point. “But _please_ , you have to promise me... _No Ghosts_. This is a _Re_ branding of the Fenton name, understood?” After that additional blow to the already long-dead horse, Jazz too left for school.

* * *

Jazz should probably feel a bit more guilty that thanks to Danny’s new track record, she had gotten used to leaving on her terms. This morning wasn’t the first time he had rushed out of the house before she could even offer to drive him... And lately, whenever she _did offer_ he turned her down. The first time he refused, Jazz figured it was an excuse to avoid being trapped in a small space faced with her questions… which, while she had to admit hurt a bit, wasn’t too surprising. When she asked why, his response was a casual shrug and a claim that he’d just rather walk to school. She sighed, accepted his excuse, and gave herself another internal reminder that not everything he did had some deeper meaning… right? But that was also not like him, Danny usually didn’t really enjoy physical exercise... Before the Accident, he used to bug her all the time to drive him places... in fact before it was usually _Jazz_ who had resisted.

_''Oh c'mon Jazz, you actually have a car now, and walking takes **for-ev-er**."_

_''Walking isn't gonna kill you.''_

_''But I have to leave soooo early.''_

_''To save time, you could always ask Dad.''_

_''Are you kidding? Walking won't kill me, but that will! I wanna arrive at school in one piece! Why can't you just take me?''_

_''It's my car, I make the rules. I don't have to drive you everywhere, I'm not your chauffeur. Quit being a brat!''_

_''It's not like I'm gonna mess up your **precious** car, you're the one being a brat!''_

Maybe he was trying to do it to impress his friend Sam.

Should she push the issue? Insist that since he couldn’t get to class on time, she needs to drive him… No, she shouldn’t strong-arm him… she’d only push him further away...

Besides, it wasn’t just homeroom he was late for, so _getting_ to school wasn’t the root of that problem... He must be fooling around in the halls or… something. "Going to bathroom" for the entire class period, according to his teachers. That also wasn't like him, he wasn't some kind of delinquent. The very idea was almost laughable, Danny was always a bit of a goody-goody–of course not to the extent he teased _her_ of being. He was a good student. He was bright and energetic, when his curiosity was peeked there was nothing that couldn't accomplish. He never had or _caused_ any troubles. Well ok, he did sometimes like to pull small pranks and had a bit of a mischievous side... but he never did anything really _wrong_. He had never even ever gotten detention, well... until the day of the food fight...The food fight that Danny had apparently started... That also wasn’t like him.

But that was before. Now? It seemed like he was never going home when school actually ended because something happened… again. From a clean record to at least one detention every other day... And a few outlier days where he received more than one. Something she needed to talk to him about. What on earth had gotten into him? What was he even doing to have cemented that reputation in a few short weeks? He cannot keep doing that. Absolutely not. She's surprised that the school hasn't contacted his parents yet... Or she would be if their parents weren't who they were.

Which brought her back to the task at hand. Because the way to help Danny–and _not_ smother him with unwanted advice, forcing him to either clam up or run away, and overall making the situation ten times worse–was to get her parents to snap out of it and start being parents! She again wrenched her thoughts from her brother and back to her plan. 

Maddie Fenton on the cover of a magazine, someone accredited publishing her work. Then, best case scenario, her mom will be inspired to continue the _real_ work and not waste her time chasing ghosts. Positively reinforce working on the kinds of projects that were _useful_. It could serve as an opportunity to reinvent FentonWorks Industries. A way for her parents, both of them once her mom gets swept up in her projects and thus sparks her father's curiosity, could benefit the community at large. Which in turn would provide more external validation, creating a positive feedback loop that could ensure the new path. 

Then after years and years of negligence, disorganized thinking, and harmful behavior... the nightmare could finally be _over_. The Fenton family could be _free_. 

And then Jazz could present her worries about Danny to someone who'd listen. As a Family, they could move forward and pick up the pieces. After all, maybe the cause of Danny's downward spiral was him desperately trying to get their parents' attention. In any way he can. Test the limits of the Fenton obliviousness and workaholic nature. Screaming from the top of his lungs: can you notice something is wrong yet? How can you not see anything? Waving red flag after red flag and waiting for someone to care. 

Jazz _did_ notice...she _did_ see... And she certainly _cared_... but she wasn't who Danny wanted or really needed. That was always what he said to her, wasn't it: " _go away, Jazz. Leave me alone. Stop being nosey. Mind your own business_."

I don't want you. You are _not_ my parent. And I don't want you to be... 

She understood, really she did. But it still _hurt_.

Jazz remembered craving her parents' attention, but all they cared about were ghosts. '' _Ghost_ '', that word got her daddy's attention faster than anything else...and mom right behind him. When she was very little, Jazz realized that if she screamed that most powerful word: ''G _host_!'', Mommy and Daddy would appear like magic. But that strategy grew less effective each time. Until finally, her mom sat her down and explained that ghosts were serious business and she shouldn't cry wolf like that.

Because in the end it always _did_ trail back to '' _ghosts_ '' somehow or another... But her point was getting away from her...

To help Danny, she needed to first deal with their parents...

And for that, she had a plan. 

* * *

The final bell rang, Jazz collected her things, said a couple rushed goodbyes, thanked those who had allowed her to reschedule their tutoring sessions, and sped home, driving like she was indeed the daughter of Jack Fenton. 

When she arrived, her parents were–surprise, surprise–in the lab. She sighed and got to work on making the living room presentably and guest-welcomely normal. Double And triple checking for any hazards, or evidence of explosions… or mysterious stains visible. 

A little while later, the doorbell went off. She mentally thanked her lucky stars that she was still on the main floor and had not chosen to go up to her room to get a head start on her homework. She took a deep breath as if bracing herself on behalf of the unsuspecting people on the other side of the door. A smile on her face.

Here goes nothing.

“Hello, how may I help you, ma'am?”

“Hello,” greeted a professional-looking African-American woman in a purple suit, with a pad of paper and a camera around her neck. “I am Connie Jones from Genius Magazine. Here to interview Mrs. Madeline Fenton.”

“Of course. Come in Ms. Jones and please make yourselves comfortable.”

Connie glanced over the young woman, “You are awfully young...” 

“Oh, I am not Maddie. I am her daughter, Jasmine Fenton,” Jazz waved off with a polite chuckle. 

“Ah, of course, you are the young lady who sent the email, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I just want to say how incredibly grateful I am that you responded.” Jazz gave a winning smile, after all, a little flattery couldn’t possibly hurt. “I have been an avid fan of Genius Magazine for years, it is such an honor to actually meet you, Ms. Jones” 

“Aren’t you sweet. Now…” the woman's eyes scanned around the empty living room, but it didn’t look like Jazz had missed anything weird or glowy. “Where is your mother?”

“Oh," Jazz waved a casual hand. "She’s just caught up working on one of her projects, she’s a bit of a perfectionist.”

“Well, that sounds promising,” Connie said with a gleam in her eye. 

“I will go get her, please have a seat,” Jazz gestured to the couch and left to go drag her mother out of the lab. “Mom, the magazine interview, remember?”

“Oh, right!" Maddie pulled up her goggles and stopped on whatever she was working on. "I'm so sorry sweetie, I completely forgot.”

Yeah, Jazz had expected that. Hence the reminder and the hand pulling her up the stairs. 

When the two elder Fentons entered the livingroom, the interviewer couldn't hide the slight reaction to their chosen Fenton-dex attire. But she wasn't running for the hills… yet.

A few minutes later and Connie and Maddie had shaken hands and exchanged pleasantries. Maddie introduced her husband, who responded in exuberant praise of his wife. The woman pulled out a camera and snapped a couple photos, but so far everything seemed to be going fine

Jazz allowed herself to calm down slightly. She sat down on the ottoman next to the couch, where Connie and Maddie sat. Jack had taken his armchair that was better suited for his stature. She made them some coffee and set it down on the small table.

Now here comes the hard part: the actual interview. She hopes her parents remember their promise.

“So, Maddie,” Connie began. “For starters, I want to know all about your beginnings.”

“Oh, I am from a fairly humble background. My sister and I grew up in a little town in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. Not much chance of bein' noticed by the Academic Community. I reckon I was one of those gifted kids that could get out y'know? Valedictorian in my local high school and always searching for more than my hometown. With some hard work, and a little luck, I was awarded a full-ride scholarship to the University of Wisconsin. That's where I met Jack and my love of science really was allowed to flourish.”

“Ahh, the good ole Wis U Science lab!"Jack interrupted, getting swept up in his memories. "Remember the first experiment we ever did together?!” 

“Of course I do, honey... But…” she gave a glance at her daughter, thankfully remembering her promise to focus on her _scientific achievements_. “is now really the time to go into all that?”

“Course! They wanna hear all about the Genius beginnings of Madeline Fenton, right?”

“Uh Dad, is this story going to be about… um, the... uh _extracurricular club_... you and mom started?” Jazz asked nervously.

“Huh? The Club? Yeah! That’s how it all started, remember Mads? You, me, and the V-man the 3 Ghostkateers! It began when you and I bumped into each other at the science lab one day, literally! At the time, I was trying to simulate the proper conditions to imitate an ectoentity. I nearly knocked over my experiment, Ha! Coulda blown the whole lab sky high! Boom! If not for Mads here. Though it took some time for my eyebrows to grow back, I tell ya!” he wiggled them up and down for emphasis and laughed as he misread the look of growing concern on his guest’s faces. “It is quite a story! See..”

“A story for _another time_ , Dad!” Jazz frantically cut in before he could really get going “And... I am sure that Ms. Jones has more questions to get through, and we can’t keep such a busy woman here for so long; we are on a _time limit._ ” And a ghost limit. And an explosion limit. The last thing GM needed to know about is the beginnings of the ghost delusion or one of the first combustions caused by her father. 

Connie seemed to pick up on Jazz’s clue to move on. “Ah… Right, yes, while I am sure that it is a… thrilling tale.” she gave the man another side glance as if worried he’d set off a bomb right here and now. “Unfortunately, we do need to move on. Now, Maddie, I’ve heard that you have 2 Ph.D.s, why don’t we talk about those?”

“Only 2? Are you only counting the ones from Wisconsin University?”

“You went to another university?”

“Oh, no." Maddie waved a dismissive hand, chuckling. "It was _impossible_ to find any university that offered the courses I needed. So in the end, I had to forgo the usual methods and build my own curriculum entirely. That was strenuous, to say the least, but I had help of course,” here she smiled at Jack. 

He nodded enthusiastically joining in, “Mads was absolutely incredible! She took the class schedules, syllabi, and tests of multiple different courses and created a brand new study path using them as a model.”

“Oh, Don’t forget that you were there guiding me on which classes were more important and which concepts fit better with which courses, it wasn’t all me... Anyway, eventually, we had done enough work to qualify as a doctorate thesis. Then we just had to find someone who would sign off on the work and issue a degree. That sure wasn’t easy, but we managed.”

“Fascinating, so you pioneered a custom degree path?” 

“Uh, Mom... maybe we should stick to the _official_ degrees. Did you know, she has a Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering, and one in Molecular Biology!”

“Yes, but those are old school subjects. I am much more interested in a degree that you yourself created. That’s what being a woman genius is all about! Breaking down tired old ideas and making groundbreaking contributions! What a story! And such an amazing thing for little girls everywhere to learn about and aspire to!” Connie said, her eyes shining.

“I couldn’t agree more!" Maddie gave a winning smile. "As a child, I always found many of the conventional studies in the scientific community to be rather… Not my taste. Instead, I always gravitated towards the unusual and the experimental. After all, isn’t that the philosophical idea behind the study of science? But the result speaks for itself, I'm now one of the first proud holders of an official Ph.D. in both Ectobiology and Parachemical Engineering”

“I’m sorry? I’m not familiar with those terms... _Ecto?_ Biology? And _Para_? Chemical?”

“Yes, _Ecto_ comes from the Greek word _ektos_ meaning ' _outside or exempt from'_ and is where the origin of words like ectoderm, which is the outer layer of the cellular membrane of the metazoan animal. Ectomy, the practice of removing or taking something outside the body. And of course ectoplasm, or amoeba-like substance quite unlike any other where all the sustainability is exterior. Although, in a way, the term ectobiology is a humorous misnomer as I’m sure you know bio means life, and typically my studies focus on _abiotic_ entities. To put it in layman terms 'the study of life _outside_ of life'. The root _Para_ is similar, a Greek word meaning ' _pertaining to the outside, beyond, contrary to, and the all-around abnorma_ l'. As in the idea of the paranormal. The chemicals I work with are as yet still outside the periodic table, in fact right outside this plane of existence.”

“Oh. I... see,” Connie was getting that look that people who have spent enough time with the Fentons get when they inevitably learn that not all the rumors are false. “So you study the… _paranormal_?”

Jazz had to do something. Abort abort. “Well, that’s enough about your college days, don’t you think mom!?” Her voice came out a bit too loud and a bit too fake. 

“Really? but I was just getting started. Ms. Connie said that the magazine wanted to know all about _how_ I managed to get Ph.D.s that weren’t offered at any school and the steps to designing my own curriculum so that more people can learn about the paranormal.”

“I’m sure Ms. Connie is eager to know about the things you did _after college,_ too. And y’know… we’re on a tight schedule”

“Oh, alright. Well, after college and with 4 degrees under my belt, I made my way into the workforce. At first, it was basic jobs in labs here and there, quite boring stuff to be honest. Many of the commissions and minute contributions are still what I am known for, but there was nothing too exciting about those. No, it wasn't until I actually started getting parties interested in _my_ work, that things really kicked off! As you can imagine, it is quite a niche community, so you can only get involved by word of mouth. It's difficult to be a woman in the scientific fields, and especially one as stigmatized as the _Parascience_ field, so I am sure you can fill in the gaps of intern lab work and clawing my way up. Anyway, soon after that I ran into Jack again, our previous work together at Wisconsin U had caught the eye of some fairly influential people in the Paranormal community, and we were offered an internship. We began dating again. From college sweethearts to partners in an internship, it seemed like we were destined to be, so when he finally proposed how could I say no?” She finished gazing lovingly at her husband.

“Mads has always been incredible! The best of the best! And absolutely brilliant! I couldn’t let a woman like that slip away.”

“As you can see, we often work as a team. One reason I wanted to hold the interview here in our home, and workspace.”

“Riiight,” Connie said looking from Maddie to Jack looking like she was wondering how these people in front of her were actually real. 

“Shortly after we got married, we opened FentonWorks Industries. It was another long and arduous uphill battle. We still had to do internships or low-paying jobs or demos to prove our competence. It hasn’t been easy, but with enough hard work and determination, anything is possible.” Maddie said with a proud smile.

Ok, this allowed an opening for driving the conversation back towards the legitimate discoveries, one Jazz gladly took. “They help design inventions, some of which are even commissioned by the U.S. government. Mom, how about you tell them about your work with alternative forms of transportation.”

“Ah, the Fenton Speeder!” Jack shouted, excited to once again grab the wheel and drive the conversation straight off Crazy-Cliff. “It’s still in the beginning stages but when it’s done, it will be a complete hovercraft that can withstand the conditions of the gh-“

“No!” Jazz cut off his fast babbling just in time. “I meant more along the lines of taking the gas-guzzling cars and your efforts to find a new clean energy source to use in our vehicles.”

“Oh, yes!” Maddie took over. Ok, they were in the clear. “you see we have discovered a substance, a paraelement not yet on the periodic table this is the element that much of the gh-“

Or maybe not. Jazz had to butt in again. “Actually, why don’t you explain about...”

“Honestly, while your track record is… impressive and your credentials are... _Interesting_. Our readers really would love to know about your present work. What is the latest thing you are working on?”Jazz could have hugged the woman as she more successfully got the interview back towards the ultimate goal. 

“Well, we just finished this baby today!” Oh, no. Jazz watched in horror as her father pulled out the ridiculous contraption he was messing with earlier this morning. No, no no. She was starting to really regret this whole thing. It was backfiring spectacularly. 

Jack babbled away, oblivious, “how’s that for the present? Its called the Ghost Gabber! and it”

“Dad! Put that thing away!” Jazz tried to grab it out of his hand. “The magazine wants to know about your _work_ , not your…” delusions. “ _Hobbies_.”

“Well, there are no new huge developments right now, we have many little ideas, but we need time to refuel our creative juices after our last major project,” Maddie answered Connie’s question, used to and undeterred by the various interruptions. 

“Ooh, last major project sounds interesting,” Connie said, trying to follow Maddie’s lead. However, she was still glancing at Jack cautiously.

“Oh, it is.”

“Mom has been working on a new form of self-generating energy. She’s an amazing, intelligent woman who’s about to change the world.” Jazz again interrupted, worried she knew exactly what project her mom wanted to talk about was. 

“Yes, but that’s not the biggest thing. You are in luck Connie because you came right after our golden goose laid its egg. Our most important achievement to date-“

As Jazz had expected, it was the Portal. “Really, maybe we should–” she tried again. 

But no luck. Her determined mother ignored Jazz and steamrolled through, “the Fenton Portal, a doorway to another dimension. A rip in the fabric of reality that allows us to see into the dwelling place of ghosts.” The look in Maddie’s eyes didn’t seem to have a better word to describe them other than… _crazy_.

“I’m sorry, did you just say _other dimensions_? And... _ghosts_?” Connie asked with a slight frown. 

_Oh no_. The G-word had officially entered the conversation, it could only go downhill from there. 

“Yes, while FentonWorks is involved in design and commissions… I much prefer to talk about our original work. And these days my primary focus is on the systematic capture and experimentation on ectoplasmic entities, or rather _ghost hunting_ ,” came the words that completely obliterated any of Maddie’s credibility and brownie points she’d won throughout the interview.

At that moment the universe must have taken some pity on Jazz because in walked a distraction. The door swung open and in walked Danny and his friends. Jazz had never been so happy to see them. 

Maddie looked up at the interruption and saw her son. Danny looked... _Awful_. Exhausted. He was practically leaning on his friends for support and had heavy bags under his eyes. He looked bad enough that their parents actually noticed. “Danny! You don’t look so good, what have you been doing!”

“Cmon Mom, I'm fine. We were just working on a school science project. Research at the zoo. Alone. For hours.” He yawned, “All night.” Even Danny’s friends couldn't help but stare at him after that statement. “Uhhh... we’ll be in my room.” Danny grabbed his friends and in a couple of seconds, they had vanished leaving behind only an uncomfortable silence. 

A silence that did not last long, the insufferable device in her father's grasp echoed Danny’s awkward exit. “We’ll be in my room... fear me”

“Give me that!” Jazz finally pried the thing away from Jack. She shoved it under the couch cushions, muffling the sound. 

Jazz was Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill in her own personal hell, but she was long too stubborn to stop now… she blamed her Fenton genes. So of course she continued to try to put out this fire with gasoline. “Now, where were we... Mom, why don’t you talk about...”

Literally anything but ghosts. But these were her parents after all. For being a genius herself, this wasn’t one of her smarter plans. 

“Oh yes, I was just explaining about the Portal. Would you like to see it?”

“No! I-I mean how about instead you show Ms. Connie–“

There was a yell from Danny, followed by a massive _thud_ that nearly shook the ceiling and made everyone jump. And a cry of “Danny!” from two voices, probably Sam and Tucker. All eyes turned up. Then there was an earth-shattering _crash_ as if something very big and very heavy had just toppled to the ground. What were they doing up there? 

“Danny!? Are you ok!? What’s going on up there?!” Jazz called up. 

“I’m fine!” came the muffled and strained—an expected—response. 

Ignoring the second half of the repeated conversation where she asks again and he lies again, and pushing down her building unease, Jazz turned back to the mess at hand. “Ok,” she whispered. “You know Ms. Connie, the whole Ghost Hunting thing is more of… a hobby... They actually work on–”

There was another tremendous _boom_ that almost sounded like a wall collapsing. And something wiring like one of their parents’ inventions. But couldn’t be because Danny knew better than to mess with their parents’ stuff… especially since the Accident.

“What was that?” Connie asked.

Jack’s answer wasn’t surprising in the slightest. “Ghost! I bet it was a ghost! Those suffering spooks are back!” 

“Oh my…” Maddie had the Fenton Finder out in no time, as part of the new routine she carried it with her 24/7. “Jack! ectoplasmic levels are off the chart, even with countering for the spike from a flare of the portal... Kids! Get down here! There’s a ghost in the house!” Maddie called upstairs. 

Tucker and Sam rushed downstairs, looking freaked out, but Danny was nowhere to be seen. 

“Uh… A-Actually there’s to…” Sam stepped on Tucker’s foot as she came down in a way that could just barely be considered accidental. “Ow! Too much _homework_ to be done for there to be a ghost, we are just rushing down to grab some...uh some _snacks_ “ Tucker said, words coming out too fast as if he wasn’t sure what he was even saying. He bolted towards the kitchen entrance. Apparently, Danny’s friends were not very good at lying either. 

“Where’s Danny?” Jazz asked at the same time as her parents.

“Danny is upstairs...uh” Sam was interrupted by another loud crash, she winced and bit her lip as her eyes darted to the ceiling. Danny’s voice—although it did sound… off somehow—making multiple sounds of effort, grunting, and struggling. “He’s Um… uh… busy...” Sam seemed to trail off. More thuds and this time what sounded close to a stifled cry of pain.

“Uh… Exercising…?” Tucker jumped in to fit in Sam’s story, but from the look on the girl’s face, she would’ve rather he didn’t. The word sounded closer to a question than an answer, not to mention it made no sense, Danny doesn’t really exercise… and of course, they would know that.

“He doesn’t even have any exercise equipment,” Maddie pointed out. 

“Hey! That’s My computer!” Danny’s shout was slightly muffled and far off. 

“He’s using his computer…” Sam blurted out. Then with what must've been some quick improvisation began to spin a story, “it’s a videogame. Kinda like the Wii fit… but online. Y’know the only way I could ever get these two to care enough to work out. Anyway, we just came down here to grab some snacks and drinks! We really worked up quite a sweat,” Sam must’ve had more practice lying. Her excuse made more sense… Ignoring the fact that neither of them looked like they had been working out. She was also probably counting on the fact that no one here knew enough about computer games to question her. 

That didn’t stop all the discrepancies though, “I thought you guys were doing homework…” Jazz said but another loud racket of shouts, crashes, and clattering sounds cut her off. This time so loud that it must have come from the kitchen. 

The adults, and Jazz, rushed to see what was going on and found a trashed kitchen, a table smashed to bits and a shocked Tucker. “Uh...”

“What is going on?!” asked a flabbergasted Maddie Fenton at the state of the kitchen. “Are we under endoplasmic attack?!”

The noises had moved again… they were now coming from the lab under their feet. “No! Uh... I just uh… th-thought I saw a rat, tried to get rid of ‘em...” Tucker said. 

“Ghost rats! Those are the worst kind!” Jack growled charging up the gun he was pulling out of a Fenton Emergency Weapons Survival Backpack. 

“No! Wait!” Tucker yelled, positioning himself between the enormous armed brick wall of a man and the doorway to the lab. Sam followed suit. Whatever was going on, these kids were pretty brave. “Um uh…No ghosts! Just regular...completely _normal_ rats...well, I guess they are… uh...” Tucker glanced at the smashed table with another wince. “Weirdly big? ...but other than that they are completely ordinary and not in any way ghostly rats… nope no ghostly anything going on here… just rats not something to worry about.”

“Oh Tucker, I think I saw some more! Everyone Else, don’t worry, we’ll get rid of them!” Sam said, grabbing Tucker and pulling him out of the kitchen. Maybe she was hoping that they would follow them or maybe she was dreading it. Jack Fenton did follow them, screaming all the while about exterminating ghost rats. Maddie meanwhile stooped down studying the debris from the kitchen and scanning for ectoradiation.

“I would like to know exactly what is going on here,” said Connie approaching the lab. 

Jazz, who wanted to do her best to keep Ms. Connie out of the lab, and away from the weirder parts of her parents’ delusions, tried to stop her, “Wait! I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“Hmm.” Her mother did not look happy. Her lips were pursed, thin, and disapproving. She dropped the wood chips she was examining and stood up. ”Where is Danny? I want to know exactly what on earth he is doing?” Her mother said as she began to head towards the stairs.

“Actually that’s not a bad idea, I’d like to know a bit more about this Danny,” the reporter muttered, lab forgotten, she followed Maddie. Jazz came too. What she was hoping to accomplish she didn’t even know anymore.

The interview was in shambles. Her father was being led on a wild goose chase by Danny’s friends, hunting invisible—not to mention imaginary—ghost rats. Her mother was finally realizing that something was up with Danny. Danny himself seemed to be taking a rather distressingly destructive way to deal with whatever was wrong. And to top it all off a reporter—that she’d invited over to try and prove that they could at least fake being functional members of society… Ha! Good one.—was dogging their heels, recording every maddening detail, and looking like a cat with a bird in its jaws. Story found. Plan obliterated. Jazz shuddered to think what might be printed in the magazine now.

“Danny? Sweetie, where are you? Are you ok? What are you doing?” Maddie flung open his door, to see his room in chaos, various things were thrown around and at least one of his rockets was smashed. He himself looked slightly crazed, still tired but shaken up and adrenaline-filled as if he’d just gotten off a rollercoaster or something…

“Mom!? Don’t you ever knock!” He launched himself across his room lunging for the door and slammed it shut with his body. 

“Well! Daniel Fenton! You open this door right this minute young man!” Maddie fumed, fighting with the door. “He locked me out?!” she turned to her guest. “I don’t know what has gotten into him lately, he’s usually not that rude.”

Connie meanwhile was looking at the door like it could be the next big scoop. “Hmm. Reclusive, messy, brooding those are quite common signs of a genius. Not to mention mysterious.” 

“That doesn’t excuse such blatant disrespect! When you come out you are in so much trouble, young man!” Maddie scolded the closed door. 

And after mom is through with him, Jazz is gonna kill him… right after she forced him to get serious help. 

They stood around trying to get the door open, when Jack rejoined them he offered to blow it off its hinges with the Fenton bazooka… which thankfully didn’t happen due to the disapproval of both Fenton women—although her mother had looked tempted for a moment. The door stayed shut, locked, and intact. There was no response whatsoever almost as if Danny wasn’t even there anymore. 

Soon they had no choice but to give up, task abandoned, everyone slowly headed back down to the living room.

Connie looked at her watch and then extended her hand towards Maddie. “Well, Maddie I am afraid that’s all the time we have for today, but it has certainly been... _interesting_ ,” the way she phrased the word indicated that she hadn’t meant it as a compliment. “Genius Magazine will… be in touch. _Don’t_ call us, we’ll call you. Goodbye.”

The professional woman shook hands with both Fenton parents, although she hesitated before extending it to Jack. 

Jazz offered to walk her out just as she had walked her in, but in much lower spirits. Connie gave Jazz a smile before shaking her hand too. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Jasmine.”

“They really aren’t... _crazy_ ,” Jazz tried as a last-ditch attempt... “I mean… well,” she shrugged, unable to defend them. “They are geniuses… just a bit… _eccentric_?”

“Y’know kid, having interviewed several geniuses… I’ve found that most of them are a little… _off_. But... Well, I am not sure if your family is the best look for our image.”

Jazz sighed, “yeah, I should have seen that coming.”

The woman smiled full of pity, “sorry, dear. However, there still might be a story here, and.. you have our number so keep in touch.”

“Wait? Really?”

“Yeah, people are a curious bunch, especially when it comes to the strange and unusual... I’m sure a story about The Truth about the Fentons would see some traction.”

“Oh.” Jazz scowled at what this woman was hinting at. “A tabloid hit piece about the town crackpots wasn’t what I had in mind when I called you up.”

“I know. But do you really think your parents are sane? Our magazine is accredited and respected. We can’t display that... ‘ _Ectobiologist_ ’ nonsense. We have our reputation to uphold and... you Fentons have yours.”

“Goodbye,” Jazz said instead as an answer, the politeness draining from her. 

“If you ever change your mind you have my number.”

“I won’t. For your information, I was trying to _change_ the Fenton reputation, not lean into it.”

Connie laughed in her face at that, “having actually met your parents now...Good luck with that, kid.”

* * *

In the end, Genius Magazine _did_ receive their scoop. Although it wasn’t Jazz that called Ms. Connie back, it was _Danny_ of all people.

Maybe he did it in as a peace offering attempt to placate both his mother and older sister and make up for his behavior on the day of the interview. It did make it so their mom hadn’t grounded him, after of course he profusely apologized. However, Jazz, while she couldn’t blame the entire mess on him, was still livid with him. Not even to mention that while he was doing whatever he was really doing—Cuz it sure as heck _wasn’t_ exercising on an online video game or exterminating rats—he had somehow smashed her computer. 

Yeah, Jazz was definitely going to kill him...as soon as she succeeded in wringing the truth out of him, that is. If he thought the magazine article could save him, he was dead wrong. 

Maybe it was just a desperate play to boost his grades, which had taken a sharp nosedive and were only getting worse, not better. She had still yet to struggle through that ill-fated conversation with him...

But regardless of why Danny called back the woman from the magazine, it resulted in Madeline Fenton being featured on the cover of Genius Magazine, along with her son and the discoveries he had made about the gorilla in the zoo. Namely, that he had gotten close enough to see that the animal was female. The magazine ate it up and published the story for their women’s appreciation month. 

With everything else that had gone wrong lately, Jazz didn’t have much energy left for a reaction apart from a drained sigh as she turned back to the drawing board.


End file.
